Hepatitis C

Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest, not a pecuniary one, as president of the Haemophilia Society.
	The Question was as follows:
	To ask Her Majesty's Government what further consideration they are giving to providing financial help for the dependants of patients who have died in consequence of being infected with hepatitis C by contaminated National Health Service blood and blood products.

Lord Warner: My Lords, the Government have great sympathy for the pain and hardship suffered by the widows and dependants of those inadvertently infected with hepatitis C. But, as I have previously indicated, our scheme of financial help is designed to alleviate the suffering of those people infected with hepatitis C; it is not intended to compensate for bereavement.

Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that contaminated NHS blood products have now caused the deaths of 1,137 haemophilia patients, 896 after being infected with HIV and 241 with hepatitis C, making this much the worst treatment disaster in the history of the National Health Service?
	My noble friend Lord Winston, vice-president of the Haemophilia Society, has said of HIV and hepatitis C:
	"The cause is the same, a virus, and it comes from the same source, blood products".—[Official Report, 5/6/98; col. 672.]
	For the wives of those who have died the result too is the same: devastated lives and widowhood.
	Why, then, by ministerial decree, are hepatitis C widows denied financial help available to HIV widows? What social justice or morality is there in denying parity of treatment to widows in identically the same tragic position?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we have been clear throughout these discussions on hepatitis C, which have been going on for quite a long time, that no negligence was involved and that the scheme was set up to help people who had been infected. It was not a bereavement compensation scheme, no matter how much sympathy we had for the widows and dependants of those infected with hepatitis C. The scheme will provide for around 7,000 people to benefit. I remind noble Lords of the scale of the benefit: a first payment of £20,000 and another £25,000 when the condition is more advanced.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Morris, said about this being the worst self-inflicted disaster in the history of the NHS, should we not have a public inquiry, particularly into the consequences for victims' relatives, especially widows? There is no point in the Government trying to brush this under the carpet; it is bound to reappear.

Lord Warner: My Lords, we are not brushing anything under the carpet. I shall go back over the history: the issue arose under another government, but I am not making a party-political point, because they also behaved responsibly in this area. In 1991, advances in microbiology enabled us to introduce screening of blood donors. At that point the world changed in this area. We are talking about the inability to test for hepatitis C in blood donors before that period. There has been no negligence; it is one of those tragedies. There is no need for a public inquiry.

Lord Turnberg: My Lords, I do not think that there is any question of compensation and negligence in this matter. The Government have been very positive in helping those unfortunate individuals who, through no fault of their own, have received blood from patients with AIDS or hepatitis C. The question now is whether the Minister can extend the Government's magnanimity to the dependants of haemophilia patients who have died of hepatitis C.

Lord Warner: My Lords, we have enormous sympathy but, as I have said, we have no plans at this point to extend the scheme beyond those infected with hepatitis C.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, what is the cost to the families of bringing a claim to the compensation fund, and what is the average time taken between a claim being brought and it being settled?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I do not have the details of the time taken. We anticipate that approximately 7,000 people will be entitled to payments under the scheme. So far, just over 3,500 have received payments. Most of those have received the initial payment of £20,000 but just over 350 people have also had the second payment.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is this not a classic justification for the introduction of a no-fault compensation scheme, as advocated by Lord Pearson years ago?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we will return to some of those issues when the NHS redress Bill comes before the House later in the Session.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords—

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords—

Lord Rooker: My Lords, there is time for both noble Lords, if they are brief.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, in view of the concern expressed on this matter, will the Government provide the findings of the internal investigation into haemophilia blood policy, which began in 2002, in order that lessons can be learnt about the safety of blood and blood products?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I think that my noble friend refers to the internal review of Department of Health papers going back into the past. It is still ongoing.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, can I tell my noble friend—

Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords—

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Baroness.

Baroness O'Cathain: Thank you, my Lords. I have listened very carefully to the Minister's answers. Is it that the 896 HIV patients who died as a result of contaminated blood products were not infected until after the test was instituted, whereas the hepatitis C people died before the test?

Lord Warner: My Lords, they were infected, rather than having died, before the test. That is the issue.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, can I tell the Minister, now, that while the policy of this Government and the previous one is clear, both governments got it wrong? I invite him, the next time this Question comes up in your Lordships' House, to decline to stand up and justify a position where different treatment is given to victims of dirty blood on the basis of whether they got HIV or hepatitis C, as in the case of my former constituent Bob Threakall? Will the Minister acknowledge that contaminated blood was the cause of both lethal infections and that Mrs Threakall and other spouses demand and deserve equal treatment?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I sympathise entirely with my noble friend's former constituent. I am always very respectful of his ability to give me instruction. I think that I can set out more clearly and at greater length than we have time for today why we are proceeding in this way.

Middle East Peace Process

Lord Blaker: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What progress they expect to make in the near future in implementing the road map for peace in the Middle East.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, progress on the Middle East peace process is a foreign policy priority for the Government. We continue to work with the parties and the international community to this end. Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank in August is a real opportunity. We will support the parties and the work of the quartet co-ordinator for disengagement, James Wolfensohn, to make withdrawal a success and re-energise the political process through the road map.

Lord Blaker: My Lords, while recent moves by Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, to strengthen the hand of Abu Mazen, the Palestinian leader, make welcome concessions, is the noble Lord aware that the beneficial effect is outweighed heavily by the continued construction of the barrier wall and the continued extension of settlements?
	Is not the distinction between the two sides that the Israeli Government still have power to take policy decisions and to implement them, whereas Abu Mazen's situation is made extremely difficult because of the activities of extremist groups such as Hamas? Will Her Majesty's Government draw that point to the attention of their quartet partners in their efforts to end the ruinous and still bloody tit for tat?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the noble Lord's distinguished career in the foreign service and in UN disarmament conferences means that he will know how difficult and intricate it is to get discussions going on a problem that has persisted for that length of time. Where it is helpful, we have made it clear bilaterally and through the quartet that the issues around the barrier, which could now take in two major settlement blocks, are a problem in producing a contiguous state for the Palestinians. Israel has a right to self-defence, but the barrier certainly should be on or behind the green line, if that how it is dealt with. The issue of the settlements is also very important.
	I made the point in your Lordships' House just last week that we regard as illegal a good deal of the buildings. We have also made that point to the Israeli Government. Both sides have obligations that they have to meet, and the Israelis will be sensitive to those.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree with the recent World Bank assessment that the closures on the West Bank are causing the Palestinian economy to collapse and that however much money may be forthcoming from the UK, or this week from the United States, in terms of aid, the recreation and reconstruction of the Palestinian economy will not be possible unless that issue is addressed?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, it seems clear from that report that the creation of a contiguous state is the precondition for a successful economy. Before we get to that point, because it is not imminent, the work of the United Kingdom, the quartet and the donors—it is very significant that someone from the World Bank is now deeply involved in the whole process—will have to be some of the bridging work, which will be essential for the Palestinian economy. I do not want to start by taking an overly pessimistic view, not because the position is rosy, but because we are seeing important steps. Our job must be to encourage them.

Lord Turnberg: My Lords, clearly, there are many difficult issues for both parties here. The withdrawal from Gaza must be regarded as an important first step in the peace process, on which we have to build. The unfortunate fact is that Hamas is, by daily terrorist attacks on the Gaza settlements, making it appear to itself and to the Palestinians that withdrawal is occurring under fire rather than because of a move that Mr Sharon has made.
	What steps will the Government take to try to rein in that terrorism or to get the Palestinians to do so and, in particular, to put pressure on Iran, which is a prime supporter of the terrorism?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the undertakings given by the Palestinians and other Arab states at the conference in March in London focused on some of those very points. We are using all of our endeavours to try to ensure that the commitments that were made are kept to. In a practical sense, we are providing a good deal of assistance in the form of police cars, training of the police for Gaza and liaison with the Palestinian Authority to ensure that it has a real hold on Gaza in the period immediately after the handover. The quartet reviews all practical steps literally on a day-by-day basis.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, does the Minister agree that we must not underestimate the difficulties for Israel and Israeli society in withdrawing the 12,000 settlers from Gaza? It is very traumatic for them, but they must obviously be kept up to it. Does the Minister also agree that if terrorist networks really are to be removed in the Gaza area—this is only a first step, as has been suggested in earlier questions—the Gazan economy, which is impoverished, must be massively helped?
	What are we doing to mobilise support from the rich Arab oil states which, at present, are very flush with money thanks to the huge increase in the oil price? They should be putting considerable sums into seeing that Gaza's economy has a chance of survival and prospering, and that the terrorist threat can be removed.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the security issues have got to be resolved as rapidly and successfully as possible. Lieutenant General William Ward, the United States security co-ordinator, has gone to try to make sure that the area is secure and, in that sense, is also open for business. The donor conference will be an extraordinarily important element in building that support, including support from states in the region whose economies make it possible for them to do so and support from the economies of the G8. I wholly accept the argument that a prosperous economy is quite fundamental to the success of that very brave step on the part of the Israelis.

Economic Growth Forecasts

Lord Roberts of Conwy: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer's forecasts for growth are still achievable.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, yes. The Government's assessment of economic prospects remains as set out in Budget 2005.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on his elevation to the Front Bench and wish him every personal success.
	In view of the 0.5 per cent growth in the first quarter of this year, announced yesterday—a very weak and puny figure, I am sure the noble Lord will agree—and the consensus of forecasters including the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England that growth this year is more likely to be nearer 2.5 per cent than the 3 to 3.5 per cent forecast by the Chancellor in his Budget, would it not be more realistic for the Chancellor to revise that forecast and face the consequences, which undoubtedly are substantially greater borrowing and/or greater taxation?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, for his kind remarks. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow him down the path of regarding the figures as weak and puny. He is absolutely right to recognise that there was a downward forecast of GDP in the first quarter of this year; I think that that was anticipated by the analysts and based on the March survey for manufacturing. But, even after that adjustment, I hope he will accept that GDP growth for quarter 1 of 2005 is at 2.75 per cent, the 51st consecutive quarter of growth and the longest period of sustained economic growth that this country has seen since records were first produced. As for independent forecasters, if the noble Lord looks at the record I think he will see that the Treasury's performance is better than that of the independent forecasters and has been year in and year out.

Lord Barnett: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend. Perhaps I may ask him to throw away his Treasury brief and accept that of course economic forecasts on growth can be wrong, and can be proved to be wrong in due course. Equally, the golden rule, which is over a cycle rather than a year, could turn out to be wrong and borrowing could be higher. However, does he nevertheless accept that even if growth is 0.5 per cent or even 1 per cent lower than forecast, it is in the GDP money terms of £1,200 billion. An increase in tax or cuts in public expenditure would be quite wrong in those circumstances.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: I thank my noble friend for that question and his kind remarks. I wondered how long I would be in this role before he was able to pose a question to me. I look forward to the benefit of his advice and expertise in the upcoming months.
	My noble friend is right to say that GDP figures can change: a huge range of factors impact on our economy as we become increasingly dependent on the global world. But I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow him down the path of accepting that we should adjust the Budget 2005 forecast at this point. I am not just accepting the Treasury brief. It seems to me that it would be imprudent to adjust those projections on the basis of the preliminary figures for only one quarter. A whole host of data go into the forecast. I think that we should stick by it and remain as we are.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, can the Minister give us some feel of the scale of what the Chancellor's problem might be? What would be the shortfall in government revenue if our GDP growth this year were to fall by a half per cent from that which the Chancellor forecast in the Budget?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I do not think that it is helpful to consider hypothetical questions. If that situation were to arise, although I do not believe it will, then no doubt the Chancellor would address the issue in the normal way. But that is not where we are. We hold fast to the projections and forecasts presented in the 2005 Budget.
	There are issues on retail sales and manufacturing, but the underlying data show why we hold firm to the forecasts. Retail sales growth has slowed, but it was already projected in the Budget 2005 forecast that consumer spending would moderate and grow at a rate lower than that for the economy as a whole. Moreover, while the data on retail sales are patchy, they still show some overall growth. I think that sales volume increased by 0.5 per cent in April over March. However, retail sales represent just one-third of consumer spending, so there is still a long way to go. I think that the projections are good and have proved historically to be good in terms of Treasury forecasts vis-à-vis the assessments made by independent forecasters.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I have every sympathy with the noble Lord for having to stick to his rather difficult brief. The Minister will be aware that the inflation report published last week by the Bank of England gave the Chancellor a one-in-five chance of actually hitting his forecast for this year. So will the noble Lord now accept the wager I offered him last week if I give him odds of five to one?

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness. In the two weeks that I have been in post, this is the second time that she has sought to entice me down the path of gambling. It seems that the offer has been made in respect of an unregulated and perhaps tax-free environment, so I hope that she will forgive me if I do not take it up.
	I have set out quite clearly the Government's position in relation to the forecasts and I am happy to refer back to some of the forecasts of earlier periods. In 2003, independent forecasters said that the Budget forecasts were "optimistic". That proved not to be the case. In 2004 the same situation arose, and it was not until August of that year that the independent forecasters moved closer to the Government's position. Again, the Government's position proved to be correct. We will see where we end up when we come to the pre-Budget Report later this year.

Lord Harrison: My Lords—

Lord Sheldon: My Lords—

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I think that my noble friend Lord Sheldon was the first to rise to his feet.

Lord Sheldon: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that, compared with previous governments, these Treasury forecasts have usually been more accurate than outside forecasts? Figures based on just one quarter really should not be sufficient to overturn those general views.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I agree absolutely with that sentiment.

Terrorist Offences: Deportation

Baroness Williams of Crosby: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether it is now their policy to deport non-British citizens charged with terrorist offences, even when, as in the recent ricin case, the courts have found them innocent of the charges.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Section 3(5)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971 provides that a person who is not a British citizen may be deported if his deportation is deemed to be conducive to the public good. In deciding whether or not deportation action is appropriate in a particular case, the fact that the person concerned has been acquitted of any criminal charges will be one of the factors taken into account where it applies, but it is not conclusive. Each case is considered on its individual merits, taking account of all the relevant factors. Of course, where someone subject to immigration control is present without leave in the United Kingdom and has no entitlement to remain, we will normally seek to remove him whether or not he has been tried and acquitted of any criminal offence.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, first I congratulate and commiserate with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, on retaining his very tough assignment. The noble Lord quotes the Immigration Act 1971, but is it not also the case that the United Kingdom is a member of the European Convention on Human Rights and has signed the UN convention against torture? Given that, I ask the Minister, first, to affirm that so far Algeria has not given any assurances that people acquitted of any crime in the United Kingdom and deported to that country would not be tortured. Secondly, will he affirm that we still retain our commitment to the European convention and the convention against torture? Finally, will he commit himself to saying that the United Kingdom will not deport innocent citizens to countries which, as Amnesty confirms, have a systematic record of torturing their citizens and those returned to them?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her kind congratulations. I am more than happy to confirm that of course we would not seek to derogate from our international human rights obligations, and that is the case in this instance. It would be wrong and inappropriate of me to comment on individual cases from the Dispatch Box, but I want to make it absolutely clear that we greatly respect our international human rights obligations. We would not remove a person to a country if there was a risk of any kind of that person being tortured or otherwise ill treated.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, did not the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, visit Algeria shortly before the election and hold discussions with the authorities on what they would do if we were to deport the Algerian citizens being held in Belmarsh? Will the noble Lord confirm that the noble Baroness was unable to secure any undertakings from the Algerian authorities that these citizens would not be tortured? In those circumstances, would it not be a breach of our obligations under Article 3 of the convention against torture if any of those people were to be refouled?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, in this particular case it would be wise to await the careful consideration that undoubtedly will be given by officials to the circumstances of the individuals concerned. I am not going to be drawn to comment on particular visits made by Ministers to discuss very sensitive issues because it would be wrong of me to do so from the Dispatch Box. I want to make it absolutely clear that we would not seek to deport anyone if there was a real and probable threat of that person being tortured or ill treated by another country.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, during the passage of the Immigration and Asylum Bill, the Minister gave assurances that in-country reports would be taken into account when considering deportation. In this case, Amnesty International is holding an inquiry into torture taking place in Algerian gaols. Can he assure the House that no decision will be taken until the report is complete and that due consideration will be given to its findings?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I confirm that in-country reports are extremely important in the process of considering cases. It is right that officials properly consider them, and that at a later stage those considerations are informed by any assurances which need to be sought. That is the right way to deal with this and that is how it rests.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, in view of what has been said from the Liberal Democrat Benches, can my noble friend confirm that when I was a Minister and went to Algeria for the purposes stated by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I did receive certain assurances from the Algerian Government and that those are now quite properly the subject of discussions between Her Majesty's Government and the Algerian Government in order to test out their validity? I hope that my noble friend will be able to confirm the position.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am more than happy to confirm the situation.

Electoral System

Lord Lipsey: rose to call attention to the workings of the British electoral system in the 2005 general election; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, in moving the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, I should first remind the House that I am chair of Make Votes Count, the voting reform campaigning organisation.
	Voting reform has never been a terrific crowd pleaser but that does not make it any the less important. This is our first ever "debates Thursday". The House is in a holiday mood and so I shall start with a little fairy tale.
	A Martian visits London. "Take me to your leader", he says. But he is swiftly told that that is not quite so simple here and is whisked round to Parliament to have explained to him—perhaps by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who chairs with such distinction the Constitution Committee of your Lordships' House—the wonders of our democratic election-based governance.
	Being by definition an intelligent being, the Martian is, of course, much taken by what he hears. In particular, he wants to know all about the results of our latest general election. So he "googles" the Internet—Martians, of course, have the Internet built into their brains and so no connection is necessary—and he comes across an analysis of the results from the Electoral Reform Society.
	This is what he learns. Of the total electorate, just three in five people chose to vote. Of those, a little under 35.2 per cent voted Labour, by far the lowest share of any winning party in the last century and this. Labour won the votes of 21.6 per cent of the electorate but was rewarded with 55.1 per cent of the seats in Parliament. If the Conservatives had polled the same vote share as Labour, they would nevertheless have had 116 fewer seats; Labour would still have had an overall majority of 26. To get as many seats as Labour, the Tories would need to poll at least 6 per cent more votes.
	Only around two-thirds of MPs got the support of 50 per cent or more of the voters in their constituencies; no MP got the support of as many as half of their electorate. Every million voters who voted Labour secured 37 MPs; every million Tories, 22 MPs; every million Liberal Democrats, 10. Almost one voter in five voted not for the party they preferred but for the party that tactically they felt it best to vote for. I could go on and on and on.
	Noble Lords should ask themselves this question: would the Martian be more likely to conclude that none of this mattered—that the advantages of strong government outweighed these affronts to justice—or would he more likely reel away wondering how his distinguished and brilliant interlocutors such as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, could be so blind as to defend such a travesty?
	In particular, there is one minimal test which any system which claims to be democratic should have to pass. It need not be proportional—I shall come back to that—but it must be unbiased. That is to say, the rules of the game have to be such that parties that do equally well in the votes that they collect do equally well in seats. As I have shown, the British system now abjectly fails that test.
	Indeed, it now fits more readily into the various distortions of democracy seen around the world, where gerrymandering is employed to keep those in power in power. In a recent case involving postal vote manipulation, the judge said that our system would disgrace a banana republic. But that is not only true of postal voting. Our system now stands barely better than the systems that your Lordships regularly deplore in other nations without the law—banana republic Britain.
	Does this matter? By being present today in gratifying numbers your Lordships indicate that for you these matters at least need debate. I thank all who are present and those who will be speaking.
	I think I can illustrate the concern that I have by reporting the reaction that I have had to this debate from some of my colleagues on the Labour Benches. I do not criticise them for this—it is quite natural—but they have asked "Why are you raising this issue now? You are casting doubt on the Government's mandate". By God I am, my Lords! Elections are the supreme authority in any democratic system. They—and they alone—confer on the Government the right and legitimacy by which they rule. If therefore the elections are manifestly faulty—as under our system they are—so then is the basis for that legitimacy and so then is that authority undermined.
	We have seen this in the first days and weeks of the new Government. On some days Ministers seem to recognise that the election result was something less than a wholesale triumph. The humble, listening Prime Minister who limped back from Sedgefield illustrated this. But on other days we have seen an arrogance that defies belief, a wilful ignoring of the message delivered by the electorate on the basis that it can be ignored because, after all, the Government have an overall majority in the House of Commons.
	So far as the people are concerned—and it is the people that we serve—as soon as the Government start doing things that they do not like, as they will quite soon, the people will be perfectly able to retort, "But most of us did not vote you". What will be the answer to that?
	The legitimacy genie is out of the bottle. It cannot be stuffed back in by the political elite. Either our electoral system is re-examined or there will be a rottenness at the heart of our democracy.
	I am sure—as I can see from the nods of noble Lords opposite—that this will come as music to the ears of the Liberal Democrats and I cheerfully embrace their support. However, the two big parties still seem determined to defend the system, warts and all.
	Perhaps I may first say a word to the Conservative Party. I am told that, by some strange alchemy, those taken prisoner by terrorists fall in love with the people who are inflicting such terrible cruelties on them. It is the same with the Tories and first past the post. Here is a party which is being extraordinarily disadvantaged by first past the post and we do not have yet a single Conservative MP—unlike some Members of this House, I am pleased to say—who has dared to stand up and tell the evident truth.
	It will be very kind of the noble Baroness to defend the system when she winds up for the Conservatives, but does she know what it is doing to her own party? The bias in the present system makes it extremely hard for the Conservatives to win an overall majority. To do so they would need to poll, at a bare minimum, 42 to 43 per cent of the national vote. From 1997 to 2005, the Conservative share of the vote rose at a rate of around 0.2 per cent per year. On this basis, I calculate that they might hope to achieve an overall majority in the election of 2061. Never mind choosing their next leader, on this basis the next Prime Minister of a Conservative government with an overall majority has yet to be born.
	But my main argument today is aimed at my own party, the Labour Party, of which I have now been a member for cracking on for 40 years. I understand, of course, that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is not able to be with us today but I am absolutely delighted that he has such an eloquent and appropriate deputy in my noble friend Lady Ashton, who we welcome to her new responsibilities. Although my noble and learned friend could not be here today, he was able to appear on the "Today" programme earlier in the week and to state his views on the subject.
	My noble and learned friend put forward three arguments with which I wish briefly to take issue. First, he said that change would mean endless coalition government; secondly, that it would encourage extremist parties; and, thirdly, he said that there was no groundswell of opinion for change.
	At the heart of the first two charges lies a basic—I could almost say "schoolboy" if it was not of such a brilliant man—error which equates electoral reform with proportional representation. Of course some electoral reformers support PR—good luck to them—but I am emphatically not one. I support the broad thrust of the report of the Jenkins committee, of which I was a member and which took a quite different approach. It recognised—indeed, its terms of reference stated—that electoral systems have to balance various, and sometimes contradictory, considerations—for example, proportionality, strong government, voter choice and so on. Jenkins concluded—and developments since strongly reinforce that conclusion—that our system was out of kilter and that balance needed to be restored.
	As Jenkins clearly argued, coalition government is not necessarily—contrary to the Lord Chancellor's view—weak government. The post-war history of Germany, until very recently, shows that. Nor is majority government necessarily strong government. We remember John Major's majority government, and I wonder whether things will turn out all that differently for this Labour Government, majority and all.
	Be that as it may, Jenkins would not mean permanent coalition. The AV+ system it recommends is rather more proportional than the present system but by no means totally proportional. A Government, Labour or Tory, who got around 42 to 44 per cent of the vote would have every chance of an overall majority. Ironically, this is no more than the Tories require to get an overall majority under the present system. It is only Labour which benefits from the present system at all.
	Nor would the Jenkins system encourage extremists. Pure PR systems do that—Israel, for example—and that is why I am against them. But under the Jenkins system of county top-ups, extremist parties would not win seats with less than 10 per cent of the vote. The British National Party, in particular, would not come anywhere near securing a seat in Parliament.
	The final point that my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer made was that there was no groundswell of support for change. While my putative Martian was en route for London, it seems that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor was en route for Mars. On every possible indicator of public opinion, concern about the electoral system has dominated debate since the general election.
	NOP's poll for the Independent showed 62 per cent support for reform. I have never seen a figure like that in all the years of polling on this subject. Some 20,000 people responded to the Independent's campaign on electoral reform. Phone-in programmes such as "Any Questions" and "Any Answers" have been dominated by the debate. Three hundred and fifty angry reformers—the largest public meeting I have seen in 40 years in and around this House—filled Committee Room 14 for a meeting of reformers just after the election. And so on, and so on. The only places this clamour fails to penetrate is the closed mind of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and, I fear, of the Prime Minister, under whom he serves. But the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and even—I say this with genuine personal regret—my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor may not be with us for ever, and after they are gone, perhaps wiser counsels will prevail.
	I conclude with some questions for my noble friend who is replying to this debate and who is endlessly solicitous when asked specific questions. Can she say a little more about the review of voting systems promised by the Government in their election manifesto and now under way? What are its terms of reference? Is it intended to receive representations and take evidence from outside parties, or is it a private, hole-in-corner government review designed simply to park the issue?
	What steps are being taken to test the proposition of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor that there is no public demand for change? Will the Government conduct their own polling? Will they use citizens' juries? Will my noble friend study the recent consultation on the subject in British Columbia, which developed the citizens' jury technique and produced, incidentally, a 58 per cent majority for change when the people were fully informed? When does she expect the review to be complete? What consultations do the Government plan to undertake on their findings?
	I conclude with a final question—or perhaps, more honestly, a challenge. Will the Government now agree that, after the review, they will fulfil their 1997 election pledge to hold a referendum on the electoral system, a referendum that would test once and for all whether the Lord Chancellor's claim that the public are not eager for change is true or, as I earnestly believe, wholly false? I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on having secured this debate in the ballot. I scarcely know a tithe of what he knows about the subject, but I congratulate him on a balanced and comprehensive opening to the debate, for which I think your Lordships' House is extremely grateful.
	I volunteered very late to speak in the debate and have found myself promoted to speak rather early, on a day when, I gather, Mr Michael Vaughan has won the toss and put the Bangladeshis in. I am, on the whole, sympathetic to that view. However, given my place in the batting order, I should perhaps say that I am not speaking on behalf of the Association of Conservative Peers, of which I am an officer, nor am I speaking on behalf of the board of the Conservative Party, of which I am an ex officio member.
	I should like to dwell on three issues; I am picking up things that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said. I refer first to the relationship between the number of seats gained by certain parties, the number of votes cast for them and the number of votes required to win a seat. The noble Lord dwelt on that. Before Mr Lynton Crosby left for Australia, on the sad day when Kylie Minogue was discovered to have breast cancer, he said of her that she was not a whinger and that the Tory Party should not be whingers either. I hope that we are not being whingers on the subject of votes. But there are implications relating to the Boundary Commission and, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said, to proportional representation.
	When I say that we are not whingers, my recollection, going back to the period when I started taking an interest in these matters in the 1950s, is that the position then was exactly the reverse. The Labour Party was piling up huge majorities in seats, but the number of seats they secured did not reflect the number of votes that they were getting. The views of the Liberal Party on the subject are well known and have been reiterated exhaustively—and exhaustingly—over the years.
	I realise that the country is becoming more mobile than it once was. In the "Reader's Digest" atlas of the United Kingdom, published in the late 1960s, there was a map devoted to the colour of hair that demonstrated an exact correlation to how far the Vikings got. I think we have speeded up in the past 35 years. The differences that occur in the sizes of seats are occurring faster than they used to, which may have an implication for the Boundary Commission's periodicity.
	Against that, there is an advantage in having enough time between one set of Boundary Commission decisions and the next one to see whether it has got right the recommendations that it has made. I should like to make a personal observation out of my experience in Westminster, which admittedly is an odd seat because it is an inner-city seat with very great mobility of voters. The Boundary Commissioner, against the advice that I submitted to the inquiry in 1991, gave me the whole of Bayswater and the whole of Lancaster Gate. In the process, it took the boundaries of the second seat in Westminster outside the city boundaries of Westminster and took in five wards in north Kensington and Notting Hill. I thought that that was a mistake because the population of Westminster was growing at a pace that warranted retaining the two seats. I went through the difficulties in the 1997 Parliament of having those two extra wards. The Boundary Commission has now agreed that the point was right and has reversed the situation so that at the next election, if the orders go through, Westminster will go back to being two seats and not one and a half. So, you need enough time between sets of recommendations to see whether the changes have been validated.
	The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is right about the attitude of the Conservative Party to proportional representation. I shall not dissent from those views today. In that sense, I am not serving as a whinger either.
	I want to say a brief word about postal votes because that subject came up serially in the previous Parliament, particularly in the year before the election. There was a curious event before the election to which the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, responded. In your Lordships' House, certain Peers and Peeresses on the Labour Benches sought to argue that the behaviour of Labour councillors in Birmingham had absolutely nothing to do with the Government. I did not say that the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, said this; it was an argument that came from behind her. The fact remains that quite a lot of other people in your Lordships' House think that there is a connection. No one can say that the two main opposition parties did not warn the Government of the hazards that they were running with their postal arrangements and, likewise, the consequences of not accepting the Electoral Commission's advice on the same subject.
	We had a series of referendums in the period immediately after 1997, as part of the constitutional package, and it was noticeable that the rules for the referendum varied from case to case—as if the kind of rules that we were gong to have for referendums could be made up as we went along. The arrangements happened to be quite favourable to the Government; and because of that series of referendums, I was delighted when the Electoral Commission was set up. It seemed to be introducing continuity and order into a situation that had become somewhat disordered.
	The contribution of the Electoral Commission would be much more convincing, however, if the Government did not so readily cherry-pick what they liked and ignore what they do not like. The Government claimed proudly on one occasion that they accepted 70 per cent of the recommendations that the Electoral Commission had made, but the minority of 30 per cent that they did not accept is still a large minority to pass by—particularly if you notice that, in those recommendations that were followed and those which were not, there were certain indices of government advantage or disadvantage in the decisions taken.
	I have read the Electoral Commission's new publication, published earlier this month, entitled Securing the Vote. I congratulate the Electoral Commission on its comprehensiveness and its timeousness. Obviously, postal voting is only one of the features that the commission includes.
	The Labour Party, which of course underpins the Government, about once every generation behaves in a way that taints democracy. I think back to the LCC elections of 1949, when the letter of the law was upheld but the spirit offended. Then we had the late Lord Callaghan's advice as Home Secretary to the parliamentary Labour Party that it should vote against the Boundary Commission recommendations that were being brought in under his administration. Now we have postal votes.
	I believe well of the Government and, after what has happened so far, expect them to act appropriately after the latest Electoral Commission report, just as the late Lord Williams of Mostyn rewrote the Bill on electoral reform in Northern Ireland—literally—in this House. The Bill was completely changed, and he went back to the Northern Ireland Office and said that there had to be changes and that what the Opposition were saying in that instance was right.
	In the mean time, I hope that the Minister will deny categorically the rumours that came up in the election of a leaked Cabinet minute. The rumour was that, in the discussion on whether change should occur in postal voting, the decisive factor was the position of the Labour Party as a potential beneficiary. That leaked Cabinet minute cast an unkind light on a hearsay account during the general election. When a heckler shouted at the Deputy Prime Minister that he should have legislated again on postal votes before the election, the Deputy Prime Minister replied that they did not have time. If the leaked Cabinet minute is correct, they had plenty of time to legislate, if they had done so at the right time.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, not only on initiating the debate but on his summary of the statistical evidence drawn from this election, making it unnecessary for those who follow him to re-describe the factual fallout from the recent election.
	If I were motivated purely by partisan considerations—or, indeed, even predominantly so motivated—I am bound to say that I would be not unattracted to supporting what I understand to be the Conservative position at this time on electoral reform; that is, to allow our present system ineluctably to self-destruct, so that the British public would regard it no longer even as a matter of debate, but as self-evidently the case, that the first-past-the-post system produces results in parliamentary elections which are neither representative of their views nor fair to the political parties.
	I say to the Conservatives that if they are prepared to put all their trust in a Boundary Commission sorting out their party problems, let them live with that illusion until it is disproved. I see no need to answer point by point the hypothetical presumption that they will be saved in such a way. On past evidence it seems overwhelmingly clear that what is happening to our population is not going to be taken into account in time, and no amount of gerrymandering can adjust boundaries to make our system fairer to parties.
	The thrust of the speech given by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, was to focus on the system's unfairness, and particularly its unfairness to parties. That is not a point that needs labouring; it is also unfair to individual electors—those who have the sense that whatever they do, their vote will make no difference. Many of them have had that experience all their voting lives; that is the "wasted vote" argument. But apart from the individuals who feel that the system is inevitably canted against them, there are also groups to whom the system is singularly unfair. The under-representation of ethnic minorities in this country, and of the female gender, owe a great deal to the distortions of our voting system, and could be rectified, as has been seen in many other countries, by embracing a fairer voting system. Such a system would allow open lists for the top-up arrangements, as was recommended by the committee led by the late Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, of which the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, was a distinguished member.
	But I do not wish to direct most of my remarks to the issue of fairness, powerful though that case is. My principal concern about the voting system is with its impact on our democracy and our decision-making system, and particularly on its impact on Parliament in its legislative role and its role of holding the executive to account.
	When I was first involved in public life, the electoral system was far from perfect; it sometimes produced rather freakish results—as in 1951, a little before my time, when there was a Labour majority of votes but a Conservative government were elected. That has been repeated on other occasions. But there was, in the early post-war period, a much greater measure of correspondence between the votes cast and the seats received than there is today. The distortions that have come about in more recent times, which have been particularly destructive of public respect for our democracy and for the quality of government, are those which have produced very large majorities for parties that have not enjoyed that kind of support.
	The question is, how have those very large majorities played out in practice? It has to be said that decisive and strong government has not produced the delivery even of the objectives of the government who possessed those strong majorities. We saw under Mrs Thatcher's government an attempt to grapple with what were perceived to be the unsatisfactory aspects of local taxation. It was not through lack of majorities or the weakness of the government that a system was chosen which had to be reversed very speedily. It seems to me that weakness in decision-making is not the problem that governments in this country have faced. There are many examples of similar failures to grasp opportunities on the part of the Labour Government. The main problem is the party politicisation, the narrowing of choice, to exclude alternative points of view at decision-making moments.
	In an area such as pensions, which is being considered at this time, and which was considered earlier, so far from being interested in the views of other political parties, the Government put on their blinkers, talk to themselves, descend from Ararat and deliver the Tablets. The result is that this majority piled up in Parliament is not questioned by the Government but is accepted. People sit in the committee chambers like the famous tricoteuses, dealing with their constituency correspondence, if they are on the Government side, and helplessly spitting in the wind if they are on the opposition side. Is it surprising that the public are switched off by British parliamentary democracy when it is seen to be working in this way in the legislature? That is not to caricature what is happening; what is happening has changed from the past. It has certainly changed from the days when governments had modest majorities and when the views of an individual member of a parliamentary committee could result in a change of direction by the government who were forced to listen.
	In its holding the Government to account as an executive our system of election is similarly resulting in a complete failure to adapt on the part of our democracy. There were spectacular examples in the previous Parliament with regard to the war on Iraq where we saw decision-making taken over by the Prime Minister alone, marginalising Cabinet Ministers and certainly forcing observers and followers to fall into line.
	These issues can be directly traced back to the distortions of the electoral system that preclude the possibility of multi-faceted debates and multi-faceted arguments being brought to bear upon the decision-making process. Until Parliament's position is restored in that respect I believe that public regard for our particular system of democracy will continue to decline. It is not just a matter of fairness to voters; it is a matter that affects the quality of government.

Baroness Gale: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lipsey for bringing this debate forward. However, I do not think that it will come as any surprise to him when I say that I totally disagree with what he had to say.
	I approach the debate not in an academic sense but in a practical sense as someone who for nearly 40 years has been active in politics and in campaigning. For 15 years, I have run the elections for the Welsh Labour Party at all levels.
	Some people feel that the relatively low turnout at the general election and the share of the vote gained by the Government could be improved by having a different method of electing Members to the House of Commons. Some will argue that there are more democratic ways that would better reflect the wishes of the electorate. However, there are other elements of democracy that could be lost.
	I am in favour of the first-past-the-post system, especially for elections to the House of Commons. There are many reasons why that is the case. The link between the elected member and the constituency is just one. The system is familiar to the public. Votes are simple to cast and to count and it usually leads to a one-party majority government. The system enables electors to vote for a local representative but also to vote for the party that they wish to form a government. The system gives each Member of Parliament a direct relationship with a particular geographic area and enables the electors to have a Member of Parliament with whom they can identify. That link is not available in any other method of which I am aware.
	During the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979, Members were elected on the first-past-the-post system. They were accountable to their electorate and to their party, and the electorate were able to vote for a named person. That was changed in 1999, when the election was conducted under a form of PR. The electorate voted for a political party and not for a candidate. The constituencies were enlarged. For example, Wales is now a European constituency, and electors vote for a party on the party list and not for a named candidate. Much direct contact with the electorate has been lost. It can be difficult to enthuse party members to work in those elections. They do not feel a sense of ownership for a particular candidate.
	For the Welsh Assembly, a different form of elections was tried that had not been attempted before. In the Welsh Assembly elections, 40 seats are elected on a constituency basis and 20 on a list system. It is interesting to note that the candidates on the list do not have a particular role to play in the election campaign. At the first such election we wondered what to do with the list candidates. We had to find a role for them. The role for constituency candidates is clear: they work in their own constituency with their own party to get elected. There is little specific campaigning for the list candidates. There is no clearly defined role for them, whereas the first-post-the-post system clearly defines the candidate to a constituency. The electorate can identify who they are voting for. The list gives the elector the opportunity of voting for a political party on a closed list, with the ranking order determined by the party, sometimes with the involvement of local party members.
	I give an example from the Welsh Assembly elections that in Wales we call the Clwyd West question. The four main parties fielded candidates for that constituency. Labour won the seat. The three failed candidates still got elected as they were on their parties' lists. They turned up at the Welsh Assembly at the first meeting. That totally confused the electorate, as they believed that they had voted not for the other three candidates but for the Labour candidate. Is that a good form of democracy? My noble friend talked about the Martians, but what would the Martians make of a situation in which the electorate voted for one candidate but three other failed candidates still got elected?
	As has been said today, some people say that one of the merits of a PR system is that it would be a way of getting more women elected. That has not been the case in Wales or in Scotland or in the European elections. For example, in Scotland out of 51 women elected to the Scottish Parliament 30 were elected in the constituency section out of 73, and 21 were elected out of 56 on the list system. In Wales, 22 were elected in the constituencies out of 40 and eight on the list system out of 20. In the European elections, in the UK, 19 women were elected out of 78.
	Some who advocate a form of PR say that it is a good way to increase the number of women being elected. Women are elected when political parties use methods such as all-women shortlists or twinning, as used by the Labour Party. Those methods get results for women. The only way that women can succeed in getting elected in any form of PR is when their party places them high on the list in seats that the party will win or has a good chance of winning. Therefore, I do not believe that any form of PR is bringing democracy to women by getting more women elected. The first-past-the-post system is more likely to do that, provided political parties ensure that women get selected in seats that the relevant party has a good chance of winning.
	Political parties provide a great service to democracy in our country. In my experience, the involvement of party members and supporters plays a vital role in informing the electorate. Election campaigning, as those who have been involved in it will know, is never-ending. We have just finished one election, and my party is already preparing for the next round of elections in two years' time for the Welsh Assembly.
	Election campaigning is at its most effective in general elections; commitment is at its greatest. Local government elections also provide a high level of involvement of party members. Those two elections are fought on the first-past-the-post system. They are much more exciting; more interest is created for the elector; and party members are more likely to take part in campaigning because they have been actively involved in selecting their candidates and in all the preparatory work such as raising funds, agreeing on the type of election materials and planning the day-to-day campaign. They have ownership of their local campaign and feel pride when their candidate gets elected or despair when they lose. The successful candidate has a sense of pride in and duty to their constituency. The electors can rightly feel that they can expect their elected MP or councillor to work on their behalf. That is what democracy is all about. First-past-the-post is not perfect. It has flaws, but it is the best of all the different voting systems that we use in the UK. It produces strong government, rather than coalition or compromise. The electorate understand that they are electing a government.
	We need to examine ways to encourage more people to participate in elections and by implication change the share of the vote among the parties. Changing the method of voting is not the answer. Where changes have been made, there is no evidence to show greater enthusiasm to vote in greater numbers. We should have a method of voting that makes it easy for people to vote. We know that there have been a lot of experiments with that. We may tinker around the edges, but we should not lose the valuable elements of the first-past-the-post system with the direct involvement of the electors.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on initiating this timely debate. I follow other noble Lords also in saying that his brilliant introduction will have reduced our speeches somewhat as we do not have to number-crunch—it has been done for us. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, that Blaenau Gwent rather disproves the point that she was making about all-women lists in strong seats, but I resist the opportunity to take that further.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said, the affront to the public's choice as a result of the election—which was the least proportional in living history—has been commendably addressed by the Independent, which has launched a sustained public campaign for a fairer voting system. Already in the Times, Mr Peter Riddell, its political editor, has stated the case for a re-examination of the present system, while his colleague, Mr Matthew Parris, has expressed his opposition to that. Those are all signs that a serious public debate is getting under way, and your Lordships' debate today is another manifestation of that.
	The debate will be greatly assisted by an imminent publication by Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics. He is the UK's foremost expert on elections and their outcomes, and he has analysed how different the results would have been under different systems such as STV, the alternative vote and "top up" systems. He has been an adviser to the Jenkins Commission on voting and the Wakeham Commission on Lords reform, among many others; there is no doubting his academic credentials.
	In a forthcoming article for Parliamentary Affairs entitled "Facing up to Multi-Party Politics", he offers a completely new interpretation of the changing inter-relations between electoral behaviour and voting systems in the UK as they have been evolving in recent times. He effectively demolishes the tired conventional wisdom that has lazily been employed by academic and media commentators alike and, not least for self-serving purposes, by politicians from the two larger parties. That prevailing paradigm takes it as axiomatic that the two-party system is the essential characteristic of British politics. It is an outlook that dismisses the outcomes of by-elections that upset expectations; all other political parties apart from Labour and the Tories as minor distractions; and the rise of new parties as being simply ephemeral. According to this view, what happens at general elections is all that really matters. That may well have been valid for the three decades after 1945, but it now no longer fits the facts of contemporary political life.
	After an exhaustive examination, almost all of which was done before the election in May, Professor Dunleavy convincingly demonstrates that a two-party system per se no longer obtains. He writes:
	"In every region of the country, modern British party systems now involve at least six or seven parties with significant vote share at one election or another, a potential for legislative representation at some level, office capabilities and endurance over time, and distinctive ideological positions which are not encompassed by Labour versus Conservative differences. Whenever voters exercise their choices in proportional systems of voting they assign significant support to at least six or seven parties".
	It is clear that electors welcome the rise of a multi-party system along with a proportional voting system in which they can, and do, frequently split their votes between parties. That quite evidently occurs when elections are held simultaneously as in 2003, when local and EU elections were held on the same day and recently when elections to Westminster and county council seats coincided. Of course it also occurs over time, when electors vote "tactically" and switch from their previous voting loyalties. That kind of behaviour worked against the interest of the Conservatives at the 1997 and 2001 elections.
	The new situation has arisen since the introduction of proportional systems for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and for some mayoral contests. Professor Dunleavy suggests:
	"Under the current 'co-existence' of PR and plurality rule voting systems, the outcomes of PR elections have already exerted an important influence on the development of 'major' party politics".
	He predicts, moreover, that the UK is in a transitional state that will inexorably lead to all elections, including those for Westminster, being on a proportional basis. In that he anticipated the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, when he spoke on the Queen's Speech and warned of "sleepwalking" into all-out proportionality. Neither Professor Dunleavy nor I share the forebodings expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel—quite the reverse—but it is good to have his support in the analysis of the trends.
	Professor Dunleavy cites the findings of Dr Josep Colomer who, using comparative data, shows that popular demand will force political leaders to concede proportional elections, albeit reluctantly. That may well come about, and I quote Professor Dunleavy for the last time,
	"if the fragmentation of alignments persists then the risk of the incumbents losing elections catastrophically will grow".
	The present simple plurality system cannot be sustained; popular alienation with it is clear. Modern electoral methods that focus on targeting the relatively small numbers of swing voters in marginal constituencies are the logical consequence of first past the post. Such methods, by definition, exclude the vast majority of the electorate from having any effective influence on events. As a consequence, there are an awful lot of wasted votes, and that cannot be good for democracy.
	The POWER inquiry, headed by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and Mr Ferdinand Mount, commissioned a poll of non-voters at the recent election held on 5 May to elicit their reasons for not voting. The results are instructive and overturn the stereotype explanation that it is all down to apathy. When asked why they did not vote, 36 per cent gave political reasons as against 19 per cent who admitted to being apathetic. The main reason given for abstaining was a lack of trust in politicians and what they say, and a lack of significant difference between the parties' programmes. A significant finding was that more than 90 per cent of non-voters identified three or more political issues that "really mattered" to them, despite the fact that 66 per cent declared themselves as disinterested in politics. That suggests that many non-voters do not connect the issues that concern them to parliamentary politics, which presents a challenge to political parties.
	When asked what would encourage non-voters to vote, 72 per cent said they would participate in referendums—that is interesting—and other participatory devices such as meetings with local councillors to help to set municipal budgets. Much needs to be done to re-engage the people with Parliament, and that will require a broad spectrum of remedies. One of those will be the introduction of a fairer voting system for Westminster. The Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the Foreign Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister may try to resist it, but it will come and they will be forced to yield to public opinion.
	I shall return to the position adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and most of his fellow Conservatives, with notable exceptions such as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, whom we all miss during his absence from the House. I find it inconceivable that the Tories will not come to realise that PR is in their best interests. Were it not for the top-up provisions in Scotland and Wales, they would virtually have ceased to exist in those regions. They were flatlining at around 30 per cent before 1997—as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said—so it looks very unlikely that they will gain office in the foreseeable future without PR. Whether they come round to support PR for Westminster or not, they will nevertheless benefit when public demand is acceded to. It will be the electors, not the elected, who will enforce the change to a fair voting system.

Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the scholarly and noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, who started his teaching career in the politics department at Hull University. As I shall now prove, the department has always housed people of very different views. I should also express my gratitude to both him and the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. I thought that they were trying to give my speech for me. None the less, I shall proceed with the one that I want to make.
	I accept that what happened in this year's general election reinforces the case for a review of electoral law in this country. I do not accept that it makes the case for a new electoral system. There are clearly aspects of electoral law that require attention; some are to be addressed, especially in respect of voter registration, but others are not. There is a case for looking again at the criteria imposed on the Boundary Commission. I am afraid that the law on the death of candidates in elections needs reviewing. That may seem a small point, but perhaps the Minister will tell us what the implications would have been for the business on the first meeting of Parliament had a candidate died during the election campaign in the constituency of Glasgow Springburn.
	In the time available, I propose to focus on the arguments advanced for electoral reform. I shall argue that they involve some sleight of hand, are misplaced and in some respects are dangerous. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, invites us to accept that there is a groundswell of support for a new electoral system. There was an article about today's debate in Tuesday's edition of the Independent. As he said, the paper has been leading calls for change, with front-page stories and a very high profile campaign. The article reported that readers had responded in their thousands to its campaign. How many thousands? Well, just over 16,000 had bothered to sign the Independent's petition. Out of an electorate of more than 40 million, that is not exactly evidence of the electorate rising up and demanding change.
	What of the arguments for change? I think that I do not do an injustice to those arguing for change if I say that they believe that there is a crisis in our democracy, manifested in low turnouts in elections and a more pervasive disengagement from politics, and that this necessitates reform of our political process, with a new electoral system forming a key part of the reforms. Core to the argument for electoral reform is that proportional representation is fairer than our existing first-past-the-post system. Let me deconstruct the elements of that argument.
	I accept that there is a problem with engagement in mainstream political activity. There are two basic points that I make about this. First, the problems we face are not necessarily confined to this country and can be found in countries which have political systems that the reformers wish to emulate. Secondly, our electoral system is neither a cause of, nor a solution to, the problem of disengagement. The reasons are complex; disengagement is the product of different forces at work in society—not just British society—and we need to get to grips with those pressures. I am not certain that we can necessarily get to grips with them fully, but we need to grapple with them. Advocating constitutional change—electoral reform, a written constitution or whatever—is to my mind dangerous inasmuch as it constitutes offering a simple answer to a complex question. The parroting of the case for constitutional change distracts us from getting to grips with the causes of disengagement, or rather displaced activity, and by so doing actually contributes to the problem. The method by which we vote is not the cause, nor the answer.
	In that respect, the call for a new electoral system is dangerous. It also involves a sleight of hand. Proportional representation, we are told, is fairer than our first-post-the-post method of voting. That is not a true comparison. Proportional representation is not an alternative system. It is a generic term for a whole range of electoral systems, of varying degrees of proportionality. Sometimes it is even employed to encompass the alternative vote, which is definitely not a PR system. Once we look at the specific alternatives, we begin to recognise that they are not so attractive.
	The alternatives have drawbacks, not least the fact that they also entail unfairness. I fear that the harsh reality is that there is no truly fair system. The Martian of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would be perplexed by what other countries do. We are told that the present system generates wasted votes, but so do the alternatives, which can result in most—if not all—the votes being wasted if the end result is a coalition for which not one voter has definitively voted.
	We are told that the present system is unfair to third parties in terms of their parliamentary representation. The alternatives can be unfair through giving disproportionate political power to third parties. Reformers argue that 10 per cent of the votes cast nationally should result in a party getting 10 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. But follow that through—10 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons does not then necessarily equate to 10 per cent of the negotiating power in the House of Commons. It can produce far in excess of that. Where is the fairness in that? Those are faults that I see in the arguments advanced by those arguing for a new electoral system.
	I have not gone into detail on the drawbacks of particular systems. We have previously debated the case for the single transferable vote. I drew attention to the problems with its operation in Ireland. The late Lord Russell's response was, "Well, that's Ireland"—hardly a devastating critique of my analysis. List systems build in significant power to the party machines, especially closed list systems. Scotland shows that an additional member system is not problem-free. When we look at the operation of the various systems, we do not necessarily see wonderful turnouts or great confidence in the political system.
	We therefore need to tread warily, especially when we look at what our current electoral system offers. The late distinguished philosopher, Sir Karl Popper, argued that the most important facet of a political system was not how it provided for the peaceful selection of a government, but rather how it provided for the peaceful removal of a government. In his view, election day in the United Kingdom constitutes judgment day. The government know that they can be swept from office. There is a fundamental accountability in our political system. There is one body—the party in government—responsible for public policy, and electors know whom to hold to account for that policy. It is a fundamental accountability that few other systems can match.
	Our system delivers other attributes, including a close link between the Member and constituents, in constituencies of manageable size. There is personal contact and that link is becoming more, not less, important. It is not the defining argument for retaining our present system but it contributes to it.
	For reasons of time, I will not develop the several other points that can be adduced for the existing system. I think that I have done enough to demonstrate that the argument is not as one-sided as reformers believe.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on obtaining this debate. The noble Lord referred to Israel's parliament as an example of proportional representation. Israel has a pure party list system; pure proportionality with one list for the whole country. Describing that at the type of proportional representation that anyone in this country would want is rather like defending the right to roam on Saddleworth Moor by reference to Mr Ian Brady. That would not be a sensible argument or one that we could take seriously.
	It is always a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, which I always seem to manage to do in such debates. He referred to the day of judgment. If I ever get a day of judgment with a panel of angels judging me, and nearly two-thirds vote for me, one-third against and I am sent down to the other place despite that, I would not regard that as a fair voting system or a fair day of judgment. People should not refer to the recent general election as a day of judgment, given the figures to which the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, referred.
	There is a groundswell of opinion that the present electoral system needs to be changed. There is also a strong body of opinion in this country that people do not like some of the aspects of the proportional representation systems that they have been given—particularly closed party lists. There is something wrong in a system which forces people to vote for a political party whereby the individual candidates are determined by the party bosses, according to the order in which they appear on the list. That is the case, whether one is talking about a pure party list system, such as we used for the European elections, or party lists for top-ups, as are used in London, Scotland and Wales—or as were proposed by the Jenkins commission.
	We must look for a system which moves away from that and allows people to vote both for individuals and for parties. There is a system which allows people to do that which provides broad proportionality, forces people to vote for individuals, while maintaining the constituency link—the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies. We see how it works in Ireland and in Northern Ireland. It will be introduced for local government in Scotland and we may well see it introduced for the Scottish Parliament. If that happens, sooner or later, we will get it for Westminster, too, as the benefits of the system become clear.
	I am not suggesting that there are no disadvantages. Of course there are disadvantages to any system. But, regarding the constituency link to which the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, referred, in my own constituency of Pendle, the Member of Parliament, Mr Prentice—I shall not refer to him as my MP, because I cannot vote for or against him—was elected with 37 per cent of the vote. That means that 63 per cent—nearly two-thirds of the people in the constituency in which I live—voted against him. But they have him as their MP, whether they like it or not.
	A system which provides constituencies with more than one Member of Parliament, where people can choose which party they go to or between individuals within a party, does not diminish the constituency link—and might strengthen it. I know that some people in Pendle do not want to go to Mr Prentice and think that they can come to me instead. I say to them, "No, I'm sorry. I am not your Member of Parliament, you must go to Mr Prentice, whether you like him or not, because he has the job of representing you in the House of Commons". Many people do not like that and, as a result, refuse to see him. Of course, he has his fans and his friends. The problem with the present system is that they are lumbered with their MP, whether or not they like that MP. That is not good.
	When we discussed the all-postal pilots Bill over a year ago, I said that turnout in this country would probably begin to increase again. Even a few days before polling day in the recent general election, on the basis of talking to people in the street and on the doorsteps, I thought that turnout would increase by, perhaps, 5 or 6 per cent compared with the previous general election. I was wrong and those of us who thought that must ask ourselves why. I do not believe that it was fundamentally due to apathy or that people did not care about the issues.
	Talking to people on the doorsteps at this election was a more interesting experience than has been the case for some time. There is no doubt that people were interested in the issues. Whether they connected them with Parliament is a different matter. Many people who did not vote were thinking seriously about voting. The results of the survey referred to by my noble friend Lord Smith of Clifton provide some of the reasons why people did not vote. They did not believe that their votes would make any difference. They took their votes seriously, but could not make up their minds how to vote.
	In the old days, many more people voted for tribal, family, class or historical reasons. Far fewer people now vote that way. Far more decide to vote in a particular way in particular elections. Many people at this election could not make up their minds about the best way to vote. They were not uninterested in the election, but they found that the choices put to them by the politicians were not satisfactory.
	At this election, there was the highest level of postal votes that there has ever been, apart from in all-postal pilots. That may be a good thing. It may have contributed to the miserable 2 per cent increase in turnout—which might have reduced without it—who knows? But, it also provided the largest opportunity for electoral fraud that we have seen in any British election since the reforms of the 19th century. There are organised frauds—particularly the Birmingham fraud, which, helped by Judge Humphries' slightly racy comments, nevertheless highlighted the type of occurrence that happens in too many parts of the country.
	But I wish to concentrate on the low level fraud that is involved in postal voting. We know from many anecdotes that people either do not fill in their own ballot papers when they get postal votes, or they all sit around and vote together. They vote in the presence of other people, who know how they voted. The Electoral Commission has mentioned "convenient" and "secure" voting, but it does not mention "secret" voting as much.
	Last year, all-postal pilots provided a wonderful opportunity for research after those elections, which some of us in this House urged on the Electoral Commission. We wanted it to examine who voted in the previous year's local elections—particularly where there were local elections in both years as well as European elections. It could have examined who voted in 2003 and in 2004 and two interesting groups of people—those who voted in the all-postal pilots who had not voted the previous year and those people who had voted the previous year but did not vote in the all-postal pilots. By carrying out detailed research of representative samples of such people, it would have been possible to find out how many were voting, and why, and the reasons for voting or not. There could have been representative tests of all people who had postal votes to find out how many people filled in their own ballot papers, the conditions under which they did that, how many people voted when other people were present and how many people showed their ballot papers to other people—I know that one person did that because he knocked on my door and said, "Look, this is how I have voted. I want to show you that I have voted". I told him to go away and that he should not have done that, but by that time it was too late.
	Secret voting should not be an option—which seems to be the current view of the Government and the Electoral Commission—it should be compulsory. Unless it is compulsory, you cannot guarantee against bribery, intimidation and the fixing of elections.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, I hope that there are few noble Lords sitting on the Liberal Democrat Benches today who will endorse the strictures heaped on my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor for being absent during the debate. Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat MP for Kingston and Surbiton, charged in Tuesday's Independent that that was simply because my noble and learned friend was avoiding scrutiny. He was joined by a new Liberal Democrat MP, Chris Huhne, who insisted that the matter was so serious and important that it should be dealt with at the highest level—a side-swipe at my noble and learned friend. I intend to try to find Mr Huhne when we return after the break and quietly tell him—he will discover this in due course—that in a similar debate in the Commons he would get an extremely junior Minister winding up a Back-Bench debate and certainly no one as illustrious as my noble and learned friend.
	I must confess to some slight amusement about why my noble friend Lord Lipsey and noble Lords on the Liberal Benches believe that this unelected House is the right place to start looking at electoral reform. And I am not sure that my noble friend's Martian friend would have made for this Chamber when on that quest. I believe that he would have gone down to the other end, where people get in only because they are elected.
	The Independent claims to have inspired this debate and has launched what it grandly and rather pompously calls its "Campaign for Democracy". But, lo and behold, although Simon Kelner seems short of real news and devotes the whole of today's front page to this great campaign for democracy, tucked away on the inside, under the heading "24,417 and counting", we can see the massed ranks of the troops assembled carrying the banner of the campaign. I have to tell your Lordships that 24,000 people is just about half the number of a crowd which would turn up at Birmingham's Aston Villa football ground for a home match—and I do not believe that that is evidence of a great groundswell of interest.
	I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, that it has nothing to do with process. I agree with much of his analysis. Of course we want more people to use their precious votes at local and parliamentary elections as well as for the European Parliament and so on. However, there is no magic answer to increased turnout in any system of PR, AV and so forth. I agree with my noble friend that the system that we unhappily have for the European Parliament elections hands power to political party officials rather than to party members and electors.
	Perhaps I may try this on your Lordships. Can any noble Lord name his Member of the European Parliament?

Lord Greaves: My Lords, I can name the two Liberal Democrats: Saj Karim and Chris Davies.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: With great respect, my Lords, they are not the noble Lord's Members of the European Parliament. We do not have constituency Members of the European Parliament; we have swept away that link. There are six or seven Members in the west Midlands, and I would be hard put to name the two who happen to be Labour. I certainly cannot name the others. That is immensely damaging to the process.
	At every other election, we knock on doors, mention the name of the candidate and ask whether the person will support that individual. In the European elections, we stand all this on its head and say, "No, you can't do that. You don't have an MEP in that sense because there is a heap of them and you get whoever turns up". That is very wrong. Voting for individuals and not for parties is at the core of an electoral system.
	I kept a scrapbook during the election to look back on what the pundits, political editors and others who under the present electoral arrangements so confidently forecast the result of the election that took place just three weeks ago. The experienced and distinguished Simon Hoggart in the Guardian of Saturday 26 February, in his diary column gave it as his opinion that,
	"it could be a victory so marginal that it looks closer to defeat".
	Thank you, Mr Hoggart. Bruce Anderson wrote in the Independent on 28 February under the headline, which I know he did not write:
	"The Tories have recovered their nerve and could yet make this a close-run election".
	He went on to say:
	"But it is not inconceivable that there could be a hung parliament".
	That view is shared, incidentally, by my former colleague and friend, Mo Mowlam. In the same paper on 4 May, the very eve of the election, she said:
	"I cannot go along with the view . . . that the Blair government is set for a 50–100 majority . . . we could be facing a hung parliament".
	Let us not overlook another soothsayer: the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. In a letter to the Guardian, modestly signed "Martin Thomas", he said that,
	"the Liberal Democrats will win a mass of Labour seats".
	More accurately, he might have said that voting Liberal Democrat would hand Labour seats to Conservative Members of Parliament, which happened in so many unhappy cases.
	There are other soothsayers whom we should not overlook. On 6 April, Patrick O'Flynn wrote as political editor of the Daily Express. This is the political editor and not just some political hack jobbing it on the odd afternoon in the Gallery down the other end. He wrote that,
	"for Mr Howard to win a Commons majority would be a sensational feat. But the momentum is with him now and it is possible he could do so".
	The very distinguished W F Deedes said in the Daily Telegraph of 6 April:
	"It's so long since we had a proper hung parliament . . . the most recent polls suggest it could very well be the outcome on 5 May".
	Frank Nelson of The Business predicted,
	"a minority Labour government".
	Simon Heffer of the Daily Mail of 15 April told us:
	"Coupled with the rise in Tory fortunes, this means that the hung parliament scenario is increasingly possible".
	Just to show that it works the other way round, Ian Kirby, in the News of the World of 17 April, confidently told readers that,
	"Tony Blair is on course for a massive 152-seat majority".
	Well now, I wonder what any of those will say in the coming weeks about how they made those mistakes and misled their readers to such a grievous extent. It is a good job that none of them is on the team led by Michel Howard, Tory leader, because they, like him, would have been fired for not doing their job properly.
	So why did the election lead to such comments about its outcome? Goodness gracious me, I have noticed the clock. I am sorry, I will finish now. I believe that one of the main reasons for cynicism about politics is what I call the "Daily Mail syndrome", the attitude that anyone in public life is doing it only to feather their own nest; the system does not work; it is all falling to pieces; and you cannot do anything about it. That all-pervasive cynicism, reflected, I am sad to say, by those in the BBC and elsewhere in the media, eats away at people's belief in the system, and we must do something to change that before the next election.

Lord Garden: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for the opportunity to debate these issues. I found his opening speech totally compelling. I shall not focus on the detail of different PR systems—my noble friends are much better at that than me. But I want to draw attention to one group which has found it difficult to be represented under the current system and will continue to find difficulties under any different system unless we make some changes.
	The Armed Forces represent about 200,000 voters. If we add to them the reservists that are increasingly deployed, their families, who often move with them, and civilians who are out in support of the Armed Forces overseas, we have a significant group of people who find it difficult both to vote and to feel represented. I do not wish to allocate blame in this debate, but I want to make some suggestions as to how we could improve the system, whatever electoral system we take forward.
	The main areas in which I should like to see improvement are registration, the voting systems themselves, the provision of information, the role that the Ministry of Defence plays, and how we might achieve better parliamentary representation of the interests of the members of the Armed Forces and their families.
	The system changed in 2001. As the Minister said in a previous debate, this was an opportunity to give more choice to the Armed Forces. But it did not work out that way—that is the trouble. The new system allowed for registration as a local civilian voter, or as a service voter who could vote by post or proxy. But, at the same time under the change, members of the forces had to re-register every year instead of being registered continuously, as had happened under the previous system. As they moved, progressively they fell off electoral registration lists because electoral registration officers did not, and could not, keep up with those moves. So we had a progressive lack of registration.
	One difficulty encountered by the services is predicting where the individuals will be in any given year or what their constituency is. So Ministers advised in the other place that the best thing they could do was to register for proxy voting. That may be a more satisfactory system but it has its own difficulties. We have already heard in the debate today that the ballot should be secret, but proxy voting, by its nature, is not a secret ballot system. Some service people can register with their parents, with whom they have a reasonable relationship, and they can use their parents, or one of their parents, as a proxy. But many cannot. Their friends also tend to be in the services and they, too, are liable to movement.
	Commonwealth members of the Armed Forces have a particular problem because they may have no one in the United Kingdom whom they can use as a proxy. I return to the fact that proxy voting is not a truly democratic voting system.
	The postal voting system was also part of the new choice offered. But because the time between the issue of ballot papers for postal votes and the election itself is so short—and was compounded this time by a public holiday in the intervening period—the British Forces Post Office system has to be very fast in getting the votes out and back again. So far as I can see, the BFPO made no special arrangements for that, and many of the ballot papers did not arrive in time even for the election, let alone in time for them to be returned and counted. That may not have been too surprising in Iraq or Afghanistan but it also happened in Northern Ireland and Germany. Perhaps the Ministry of Defence needs to consider setting up some kind of courier arrangements if we are to have postal votes, or perhaps, as is the case in some nations, ballot stations for units that are deployed overseas.
	If we are looking forward, as some are, towards the eventual introduction of Internet voting, perhaps the services are where we should start that trial. As we heard, postal votes were first introduced for the services and so, again, perhaps the services should be in the lead when we look at new systems to make voting easier.
	The information and awareness strategy for the Armed Forces was not well thought out. The Electoral Commission became aware of the problem. It produced 100,000 leaflets—not enough for everyone—but, by and large, even those leaflets were distributed too late for people to register. The MoD had incorrect information on its website. The Queen's Regulations had not been updated and stated that people were not allowed to vote by post.
	There was one beacon of light in all this: there was an unofficial, if somewhat irreverent, website called the "Army Rumour Service", where volunteers posted information to encourage servicemen to register to vote and to get out and vote. This was done in a totally non-partisan way, and links were made to all the electoral registration offices so that registering could be done on a voluntary basis. That is the kind of thing that the MoD should have been doing.
	Indeed, it seems to me that the Ministry of Defence needs some guidance about its role in this matter. Many of the regulations appear to be directed at ensuring that the Armed Forces will not receive information about political parties. Canvassing and hustings are prohibited on units. Now that we have a wider security barrier because of the security situation, that often includes married quarters, and one cannot canvass if the married quarters are within the security barrier. Given that we expect the military to promote democracy in faraway places, it might be timely to consider how we can better educate it about its own democratic system. The Ministry of Defence is very target-driven these days. Perhaps the Government will think about recommending suitable targets for voter registration among servicemen.
	We were told that it is difficult to track the registration of service voters because that would be an infringement of their personal confidences. That is nonsense. Electoral registers are published everywhere else. We used to register service voters and there is no reason why that should not be done again.
	Finally, it seems to me that we need to consider how to connect the services to their parliamentary representatives. We have already talked about the effect that some voting systems have on disconnecting the representative from the constituent. There is a real problem with the current system for servicemen. Over the years, I have observed defence debates and have despaired that there is no natural constituency for the Armed Forces. MPs happily represent the defence industrial interests of their constituencies or raise the individual problems of a military constituent, but it is left to those only with some former military experience to argue the wider service interest. Over the years, a number of MPs have gained some military experience through the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme. That is a very valuable innovation but it does not give the continuous link which MPs enjoy with most of their constituents.
	Therefore, perhaps as many as 300,000 citizens—the forces and their families, the reservists and maybe some of the civilian supporters as well—do not have their interests represented as do civilian residents of a particular constituency. I do not think that there is any easy answer to the problem, but we need to consider how to tackle it. Perhaps we could look at offering a number of easy registration centres for service voting, which would give clusters with a service interest. We might have a much better informed parliamentary debate of defence issues if some MPs felt that they were dependent on a military vote.
	I know that the Electoral Commission intends to take up the lessons of service voting with the MoD and to make a number of recommendations. I simply ask the Minister to encourage her colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to listen for once and to be prepared to innovate. We owe it to our Armed Forces and we owe it to our democracy.

Viscount Eccles: My Lords, I too am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for introducing this debate and for giving us such a strong start. Perhaps I may air a thought following the noble Lord, Lord Corbett. Before we are much older, we might, from time to time, see something in the other place that looks quite like a hung Parliament.
	Following—amateurishly, I fear—in the footsteps of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, I recall that over the past 85 years Prime Ministers have been members of one of two parties. Yet, crunching one last number, in this election those two parties, added together, received only 45 per cent of the available votes. What happened expresses in some sense the will of the people and they have declared a form of stalemate, although of course the Government will do their best to show that that is not so.
	In part explanation of the low vote in the election, it may well be that the electorate has two characteristics which do not immediately spring to mind. First, many people—perhaps the great majority—have a disenchanted view of those who, for lack of a better description, we may call in charge for the time being. The more distant the people, the greater the disenchantment.
	Secondly, people, as they consider how or whether to vote, may well have a significantly more mature sense of what is happening in their world than is often thought. The Greeks would have called it nous.
	Those two characteristics—disenchantment and good sense—are related. Both have been much enhanced during the 85 years by rising prosperity, by the arrival of universal suffrage following World War I and, indeed, by that war itself. As we move on through the Second World War with the National Government, we come to 1945 and the rejection of Churchill. The collective memory of the electorate called for a change in direction.
	As a more personal illustration of disenchantment and good sense, I would recall a steel foundry in 1956. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, was our Member of Parliament. Whether it was the Suez crisis or just mundanely my interpretation of the order book, the foundry men would look at me with sympathy—they did not doubt best intentions—and say, "Well enough, but it will be different—things always are". They were not to be shaken from their opinion.
	They did not want to tell the politicians what to do next; it was just that matters could not be expected to go as planned. Errors would be made and be criticised with no hard feelings because that was what life was like.
	We have moved on, but only, I believe, to reinforce the views of 1956; we have not seen a change in the ground rules. All will—still—not work out as it is planned and presented to us at election time. As a consequence, I believe that many, perhaps most, of the people who did not vote in May know why they did not vote. Their good sense and disenchantment will have played a part. Those who did not vote Labour or Conservative also know why. There was not some random disengagement from the political process which could be corrected by making voting easier—if that is what postal votes do.
	What can be done to re-engage the electorate to achieve, say, an 80 per cent turnout? First, a much more open discussion is needed about the limitations to the political power which can be effectively exercised by government. Alongside that it would be helpful if Ministers exercised restraint over repeated claims to have achieved advances which in reality have resulted from forces much wider than those controlled by government.
	Secondly, we need to decentralise in order to take locally as many decisions as possible. There is no substitute for peer group pressure. That would require that we turn the well known phrase "No taxation without representation" on its head so that it becomes "No true representation without taxation". The duty to raise revenue and to stand for election and re-election ensures a good measure of accountability.
	This need to revitalise our democracy at both national and local level is urgent. I hope that this debate is one contribution to the way forward.

Lord Jacobs: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for bringing the subject of electoral reform to this House for debate. Most will agree that the results of the recent general election do not reflect well upon the oldest democratic system in the world.
	I am often asked to explain in simple terms what is wrong with the present system and why it should be changed. There will be some small degree of repetition in view of the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. But, having heard the noble Lord, Lord Corbett, in his engaging speech clearly endorse the status quo, I should like to reinforce the real reasons why the system needs to be changed.
	As noble Lords have already heard, in the recent election—and please think about these figures—for every million people who voted Labour 37 Members of Parliament were elected; and for every million people who voted Conservative just 22 Members of Parliament were elected. One Labour vote was equivalent to nearly two Tory votes—perhaps Labour thinks that is their proper value.
	That must suggest to the meanest intelligence that something is structurally wrong with the system. The Liberal Democrats, as the House has already heard, secured 10 MPs for one million votes. If Labour had been similarly represented, it would not have secured 356 MPs but proportionally, as we did, it would have secured just 95 MPs. What a system we have.
	The reality of politics is well understood by politicians but seldom expressed, and certainly not in public. We are all primarily in politics to secure power, preferably for one's own party—to have an overall majority in the House of Commons. That may seem somewhat selfish when, as today, the overall majority is achieved with just 37 per cent of the vote, but if one believes that one's own party has by far the best policies for the people, as indeed we all do, then the fact that one has secured an overall majority on little more than one-third of the vote is not a cause for real concern. The party in power always believes that the people benefit more by its being in power than if any other party were in power.
	There have been 17 general elections since the Second World War. The Conservatives and Labour have each won an overall majority eight times. So whatever arguments the Liberal Democrat Party makes in favour of a form of PR, it is automatically defeated by the major parties wanting to retain the system that gives them overall majorities at least half of the time.
	Coalition governments are significantly more difficult to manage, so what hope can there be if the two parties which are supported by 69 per cent of the voting electorate know that they will have absolute power after at least half the general elections? Buggins' turn is perfectly illustrated by the election results since 1945. The electoral system will never change until one of the two major parties decides that it will be better off under another system.
	As it happens, that time may be approaching for the Conservatives. The structural changes that have taken place in the UK, and in particular the increasing share not just of votes but of seats won by the Liberal Democrats, make the likelihood of the Conservatives securing an overall majority remote but not impossible. The first past the post system works perfectly well where there are just two major parties, but, as we know, it can be a disaster where there are three.
	Achieving an overall majority is the single-minded objective of both major parties. Yet they might never again succeed if the Liberal Democrats, as I believe we will, by stages raise their number of MPs to over 100. Noble Lords will notice that there are no rose-coloured spectacles in our party, suggesting that we are about to go home and prepare for government. I personally doubt, unless a cataclysmic event occurs—for which we pray occasionally—whether in the next 30 years the Liberal Democrats could secure an overall majority in the House of Commons under the present system.
	Another factor that has changed radically is the manner in which all parties fight general elections, as we first did in 1997 when we more than doubled our MPs from 20 to 46 with just a small increase in our vote. Today all parties concentrate on the marginal seats. So much so that even normal swings cannot be relied upon.
	What, therefore, is the principal argument in favour of electoral reform? It is simply that the number of MPs for each party would correlate more closely with the actual votes cast for each party. Would it mean that possibly no party would ever have an overall majority and that coalitions would be the norm? The honest answer is probably yes, but at least the people would be more fairly represented in those coalitions.
	Lastly, I come to the situation, following the general election, in which we find ourselves in the House of Lords. Powerful Prime Ministers, backed by overall majorities in the House of Commons, by themselves, determine the relative strengths of political parties in this House.
	Speaking personally, I very much admired the Prime Minister when, during his first term, he brought out a White Paper saying that the Government's objective for the House of Lords was to seek parity with the Conservatives and to give the Liberal Democrats the number of Peers proportional to their votes in the previous general election. I thought that that was a very generous offer, which I put on record in letters to the Times.
	Noble Lords should remember that when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister she continued to increase the number of Conservative Peers when her party already had a majority in the House—not just over all the other parties, but over the Cross-Bench Peers as well. This week the Government have achieved parity with the Conservatives, and I congratulate them on that.
	In 1996 the Conservatives had 481 Peers and Labour had just 116. Today the Conservatives have 210 and Labour has 213—an increase for Labour of 97 Peers. As for the Liberal Democrats, the generous but fair proposal to allow us the same number of Peers proportional to our vote in the general election has never been honoured. I discussed that with the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the late Lord Williams of Mostyn when each was Leader of the House. Without equivocation they agreed that the arrangements had not been honoured, but said that the matter was not for them but the Prime Minister.
	Today the Liberal Democrats have 74 Peers—an increase of 17 Peers since 1976. Under the Prime Minister's proposals we should be permitted 120 Peers. We eagerly await the early appointment of 46 more Peers. I believe that the Government intend to increase their power in the Lords by creating yet more Labour Peers and breaking their own parity rule.
	I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government intend to stand by either of their commitments to achieve fair representation in this House, which is parity with the Conservatives and a proportional number of Peers for the Liberal Democrats.

Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on obtaining this debate. Like him, I want to tell you a tale, but it is a true one.
	Last week, I went to a reception. Various people were there, and I got talking to a young couple. Eventually they asked who I was and why I was there. After I had given a proper account of myself, saying that I was a Liberal Democrat and a Member of this House, they got all excited. They said, "We very nearly voted Liberal Democrat". I fell about laughing, and said, "What is all this 'very nearly' business?". They said, "We wanted to but we had to vote Labour". When I asked why, they said, "We were frightened of letting the Tory in". I asked, "Where do you live?", to which they replied, "Putney". I then said, "Well you didn't get anywhere, did you? It still went Tory". They said, "Yeah, we didn't get anywhere at all".
	That is the workings of the British electoral system. For that couple there was no value in their vote. There was neither a value in the aspirations that they had, nor a value in their backstop. The debate is about giving value for a vote, which is not always there.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for obtaining, with the help of the ballot, a debate on this highly important and topical subject, and for introducing it so powerfully.
	I am in general agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, and I certainly agree with the speeches of my noble friends, except that, as I shall explain later, I am not quite as enthusiastic as my noble friend Lord Greaves is about STV as a system for Westminster. I should add that I am quite happy that the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, for whom I have the greatest respect, will be answering the debate for the government today.
	We have a plethora of electoral systems in the United Kingdom. In addition to first past the post, we have STV for elections in Northern Ireland, the European Parliament and the Assembly. We have a closed party list system in regional constituencies for European elections in Great Britain. We have top-up Members for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the GLA and we have the supplementary vote for the election of the London Mayor.
	Those alternatives to FPTP have now been in use for several years. None of them has caused significant difficulties for voters or deterred voters from voting. Of course, none of those systems is perfect. That is certainly true of FPTP. All have flaws, as do other systems that are not used in this country, such as the alternative vote.
	We must ask how serious are the flaws of FPTP, and whether there is a better alternative. I do not want to spend much time on the respective merits of the different alternatives to FPTP. We have to start from where we are, although I accept that there is clearly strong public support for the principle that each constituency should have its own individual Member in the House of Commons. That suggests that if FPTP is to be replaced for the House of Commons, the most acceptable alternative may be the top-up system used for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, or the broadly similar system, described as AV plus that was recommended by the Jenkins's committee in 1998.
	When we get elections to your Lordships' House, we shall of course start from a clean sheet, and there will be strong arguments for STV or an open-list system.
	The chief advantage of FPTP in the eyes of its supporters, such as the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is that it produces single party governments. Why is that an advantage? Weak governments are bad governments, but FPTP can and does produce weak governments, as it did for the Labour governments from 1974 to 1979 and the 1992-97 Conservative government.
	Equally, coalition governments in other countries have shown that they can be strong. Since the restoration of democracy to West Germany in 1949, it and its successor, Germany, have had coalition governments for all but four years. Until the mishandling of reunification in 1991, it had one of the most stable and effective governments in the world.
	Even worse than a weak government is a strong government who abuse their powers, as the Thatcher government did when they introduced the poll tax, as my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart said. FPTP makes that result much more likely.
	We now have a unique situation. A party has been elected to government with a comfortable working majority that has just over 35 per cent of the vote. The two main opposition parties between them got over 55 per cent of the vote. What kind of mandate is that? Are the Government saying that they have a mandate to force on the people of this country measures that have been rejected by both opposition parties? If they have a mandate, something is utterly wrong with our electoral system.
	I am not saying that you cannot have a single party government unless that party wins more than 50 per cent of the vote. No government since 1935 have achieved that result. But once you get below about 40 per cent of the vote by the winning party, doubts about the legitimacy of single-party government become serious.
	Until the recent election that had happened only twice since 1945. In the two elections in 1974, Labour took office first with 37 per cent of the vote—in fact, on a smaller share than the Conservatives had in that election—and in the second election with 39 per cent of the vote. Those elections introduced one of the worst governments since the Second World War, alleviated only by the Lib-Lab pact, which created a quasi-coalition from 1976 to 1978.
	Now we have a government elected with an even smaller share of the vote than the Labour Party had in 1974. What we need, and what we have not got, is a House of Commons that bears some real similarity to the wishes of the voters. FPTP utterly fails to do that. By contrast, AV plus, the system recommended by the Jenkins commission, would have achieved that result. It would have given the Labour Party a working, but smaller, majority in 1997 and 2001. The sort of landslide that we had in those years is undesirable in the interests of this country. We remember what the noble Lord, Lord Pym, said—I think concerning the 1983 election—about landslides. He was absolutely right, although the noble Baroness, his Prime Minister, did not agree with him.
	AV plus would not have given the Conservatives a majority in 1992 or Labour a majority in this year's election. AV plus, or other systems of PR, would have produced results that on all four occasions—1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005—would have been better for this country than the actual results. FPTP is simply unable to cope with the three-party politics that we have had in this country since at least 1974, still less the four-party politics in Scotland and Wales. In 1974 and 1992, it created single-party governments. In 1983, 1987, 1997 and 2001, it gave huge majorities to parties whose share of the vote was in the low 40s. This year, it has given a working majority to a party with 35 per cent of the vote, and far less than that of the total electorate.
	None of those results can be justified. They are blots on our democracy. We have available alternative systems that would have prevented them all. It is time that we got on with reform. Our voters deserve no less.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I join other Members of the House in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for having generated this debate. I wish that he could have seen the faces on his Front Bench when he was making his speech, as we did. I am not sure that it was resonating entirely, but it was a brave and trenchant speech. I think that it is perfectly appropriate that it should have been made in this House; I fear that I shall be slightly out of favour with the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Corbett, that it should not have been made here. I am also bound to respond to the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Corbett, that this House does not have much legitimacy because it is not elected—I have been longing to say this, so I shall say it now—by saying that I am not aware that anyone who is offered a Peerage has to accept it if they do not like the terms of the House to which they are being invited.
	We have also had quite an incisive and decisive discussion of the merits and demerits of proportional representation. My noble friend Lord Norton played his usual incisive part in that, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has now responded, as have other members of his party. In today's debate, we have ranged widely and much further than its terms, which concerned the 2005 election. I suppose that it is inevitable, once you start on that road, that the debate goes wide. We have had to ask ourselves why only 61 per cent of the electorate turned out this time—why the rest did not, does not and will not.
	In a way, discussion of various voting systems is probably still missing the point. Politicians—to a great extent, this means politicians in the other place—must devise policies and visions that appeal to the electorate. You cannot get people to vote for you if they do not like what is on offer. That has been the situation this time, when the Government, who have been in power for nine or 10 years, failed dismally to secure the wholehearted support of the population on the basis of the policies and the experience of them as a government.
	Having said that—I am very fair to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton—the opposition parties were also unable to convince. That is where we should be looking, rather than muddling with the voting systems. We must consider what it is that is not appealing to our voters. There are myriad reasons, but we should start with that, rather than worrying too much about how to get there.
	We have on many occasions discussed the need to encourage more people to go to the polls and how we can do that. It is clear that we are a long way from achieving a reasonable turnout. Inevitably, the sort of results that we have had this time raised the question of the first-past-the-post system. Despite all the blandishments to the contrary and all the suggestions put to us that that the Conservatives would fare better under other systems, we are still very much wedded to the first-past-the-post system. That is for the reasons stated by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale: once you leave first past the post, you disconnect the electorate from their Member of Parliament, the person who will represent them. That disconnection is a fundamental flaw. The whole business of not knowing who is your European Member of Parliament is serious, as it means not knowing who to go to, not having someone who is attached. It is one of the fundamental principles of the voting system that we should be able to recognise those who are meant to be representing us.
	Reference has also been made to the size of constituencies. There is a serious imbalance, which is reflected in the disproportion in the number of votes to seats. The electorates are out of kilter in many constituencies at the moment. The Boundary Commission has made recommendations, but they will not be introduced until the 2008 elections. The time gap between the Boundary Commission's reviews and their introduction will leave us with much the same situation as at present. The reviews do not take account of the fact that the population is moving fast between different parts of the country. We must ensure that constituencies' electorates are broadly equitable. The Boundary Commission must keep its powers and policies up to date.
	We have only touched on the fact that part of the problem that we have encountered during the election has been caused by the Government's endless fiddling with the postal voting system. That has brought about a complete lack of confidence about what happens to people's votes. That is not only about postal voting now, it has become a canker within the democratic system. We have now managed to find a system that is flawed.
	One thing about this country has always been that in our method of electing Members of Parliament—first past the post—the secret ballot has ensured that people could, with confidence, go to the polls. I am bound to say that the fracas and concerns about the postal voting system, which have been replicated in the general election with fairly well rehearsed problems in Stoke-on-Trent and Bradford, are bringing the whole system into disrepute. It is worrying because the number of people seeking postal votes has increased from 3.9 per cent to well over 15 per cent. So there is a demand, but it is hopeless if it undermines the whole electoral system.
	I hope that the Government will take on board the Electoral Commission's recommendations, referred to by my noble friend Lord Brooke, in Security of the Vote and that the legislation that is due later, though I do not know when, will at least try to address some of the problems and restore security and confidence between the postal vote and the electorate.
	The ability to check who people are must be introduced. If it works in Northern Ireland, it will work anywhere. It is about time that we looked at it. I am delighted to see the noble Baroness sitting there; I would not be nearly as happy if it were the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, because I do not think that he would tackle these issues with anything like the noble Baroness's flair. It is an absolute travesty that anybody should suggest anything different. Will she indicate when the legislation to take account of the Electoral Commission's recommendations will come before this House? If it is not introduced soon, it will not be enacted in time to affect the local elections in 2006, which are coming up fast, and others shortly afterwards.
	Responsibility for everything to do with elections has now passed into the capable hands of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, in the Department for Constitutional Affairs. I hope that that department will now drop any suggestion of encouraging all-postal voting. We have now had two serious demonstrations of why that would not be useful.
	It has been a most interesting debate. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part on my side of the House. As usual, they have made effective and thoughtful speeches, but overall the debate has been thoughtful. Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for ensuring that we had the opportunity to debate these important matters.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it is a privilege to respond to the debate. I join noble Lords in thanking my noble friend for raising such important issues. I was reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who cannot be here, that this was a classic example of a debate in which one might put on one's anorak. Indeed, he promised me that, were he to appear, he might wear such a garment. I, of course, do not possess one. My view is that we have been privileged with much expertise.
	These are important fundamental issues of democracy, and I know that all noble Lords who have spoken take them extremely seriously and have a variety of backgrounds, knowledge and expertise. We would need a day-long seminar on the issue; there is not enough time to address it in your Lordships' House, given the level of expertise. I recognise immediately that I shall not do credit to all the speeches made.
	I declare an interest: he is called my husband. He sat on the independent commission on PR and is chairman of YouGov. In some ways, I would prefer him to respond to the debate; so would he. Some of the conversations—dare I say, rows—in my house this week about how I might approach this would be worthy of the telling, but perhaps not at the Dispatch Box.
	I will try to address the specific questions raised, not least those of my noble friend Lord Lipsey, who gave notice of his points. I shall respond to him at the end. We have touched on a range of subjects from political engagement to voting, particularly postal voting, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and others. It is a subject in itself. I shall not dwell on it today, but I take seriously the points raised. Other issues raised include the Boundary Commission, on which I shall say more; the rules on what happens when somebody dies, which I shall touch on later; and the possibility of change. A range of views were expressed on the different voting systems; I shall try to deal with those mentioned.
	I believe firmly in the legitimacy of the election process that we have gone through. We are a duly elected, legitimate Government: we won. The turnout was up by around 2 per cent on the previous election; we have a working majority. Of the previous 17 elections, only seven have given a government a higher majority. It is very important that Parliament sends out the message that we recognise that we have a Government.
	I shall start from a philosophical point, looking at what general elections are for. There are three key functions: first, to choose an executive; secondly, to choose a legislature that represents the full range of political views; thirdly, to choose a legislature that represents different localities. For some people, there is a fourth legitimate concern: keeping out what one might describe as extremists.
	The core problem in this country and in electoral systems generally is that no single electoral system fully achieves all those objectives; therefore, some kind of compromise is needed, depending on which of the issues that I raised one values most. For example, first-past-the-post and the alternative vote (AV) achieve the choosing of an executive and a legislature that represents different localities, but they are not as good at achieving the second objective of representing the full range of political views. PR systems can achieve that second objective, but they are not as good at achieving the first or third. If you take the view that keeping out extremists is important, the alternative vote is the best way of doing so.
	Noble Lords talked about how PR systems could be designed, in a sense, to support the extreme elements—they referred to Israel, which has the purest PR system—or to hinder them. Any extremist party with more than a tiny amount of support is likely to gain a toehold under some form of proportional representation.
	The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, talked about the variety of voting systems that already existed in this country. As our priorities vary from institution to institution, our choice of electoral system could also vary. The preference for a clear decision on which party or person should form the executive might matter more when choosing a national government than when choosing, for example, a regional assembly or local council. In that case, one might advocate PR for London, Scotland and Wales but perhaps not for Westminster.
	There are various options, but when looking for a system it is important to start by asking what we seek fundamentally to achieve. Unsurprisingly, noble Lords talked a lot about the first-past-the-post system. My noble friend Lady Gale, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, talked about it in more glowing terms than others. Many regard it as unfair, but it depends on what we mean by "unfair". Of course it is unfair to smaller parties with geographically dispersed support. Interestingly, it is not unfair to minority parties with concentrated support, so the Welsh nationalist and Ulster parties do not suffer in the same way from first-past-the-post.
	There are other kinds of fairness: to localities, as single-member seats are incompatible with proportional representation; to social groups defined by gender or ethnicity; and to very small parties, because under most systems of proportional representation parties must cross either an explicit threshold, normally of around 5 per cent, or an implicit threshold before they can achieve representation. For example, it is very hard to win seats under STV with much under 15 per cent support in any given area. So, if we are concerned about fairness to minorities, why should fairness apply to fairly small but not very small parties? The question can also be considered important by those who want a government who can be held to account on manifesto pledges. It is impossible to do that under PR coalitions.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, further to the noble Baroness's point, does she think that that applies to the Scottish Parliament?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the Scottish Parliament is a good example of an exception to what I have just said. I think that the noble Lord would agree that, throughout Europe in particular, when a coalition is formed post-election, it is difficult to translate what can be serious differences in manifesto commitments into something on which we can honestly say that the country has voted. I think that my point still stands, although I take the point that Scotland is proving to be a good example that we must consider carefully.
	It is also interesting that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that each election since the Second World War has produced a government who more people have preferred. I will come back to that point. That is the philosophical standpoint from where I begin. We have to be very clear about what we wish to achieve and which of the priorities that I have outlined come at the top of our list.
	The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, talked about the Boundary Commission in particular, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, talked about the time-lag between the recommendations, which I recognise as an important issue. Noble Lords know that the reviews by statute have to be between eight and 12 years. I take the point about mobility of population.
	Your Lordships will also know about the commissions transfer to the Electoral Commission as soon as they have done their work by way of the 2000 Act, which is important in terms of the Electoral Commission picking up what happens. I will feed into their work what noble Lords have said about looking carefully at the issues relating to the difference in time, although it is important to get certainty—as noble Lords know, changing boundaries is not a simple process—and also make sure that that point is recognised as important.
	The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, spoke about, I think, two reports from the Electoral Commission, including Voting for Change. I hope to receive a note saying more about when the legislation is coming in specifically so as to address the point raised by the noble Baroness. As the noble Lord will know, we have published responses to Voting for Change. We are looking carefully, of course, at Securing the Vote, which is very important.
	Obviously, it is important to continue to offer electors a choice of ways in which they cast their vote. I accept fully what the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said about the importance of secrecy of the ballot box. But, as noble Lords have heard me say many times, I am also concerned to offer a variety of means for people to be able to express their vote.
	I recognise that disabled people and people with young children—and for many other reasons—may not be able to go out and express their votes in the traditional way, if I can call it that. We need to think carefully about how to do that safely and securely, and give people absolute confidence. The critical thing about Securing the Vote is that the commission says that we need to command public confidence. I could not agree more. That brings us back to postal voting. As of this morning, no petitions have been received on this election, but that does not mean that I am complacent. We need to think this issue through very carefully, which we have already indicated that we will do.
	I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, for his immense work, not least that which he has done with my right honourable friend Mr Cook. Before I came today, I looked at the constitutional reform agenda agreed by the Joint Consultative Committee in March 1997. I was pleased to see how much we have done. I am sure that the noble Lord will indicate what we have not done, but I was pleased to see how much progress has been made on the work that the noble Lord undertook.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for what she has said. But with regard to this debate she will recognise that the process came to a juddering halt after the Jenkins committee had reported. The undertaking—contained not only in the report to which the noble Baroness has referred, but also in the Labour Party's manifesto—that a decision between the existing system and an alternative would be put to the vote of the people is one that was conspicuously not implemented, neither then nor subsequently when repeated.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, we stand by the commitment in the 1997 manifesto. If one looks at the 2001 and 2005 manifestos, we are very clear about that. I hope to address that issue. I was merely trying to pay tribute to the list of particular concerns that were raised, not least freedom of information and so on, and to pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord did and continues to pursue, which is very important.
	As the noble Lord would expect, I disagree with his analysis, not least on the question of Iraq. It is very important that it was the first time that there was a substantive government Motion debated in another place and that that was voted on. I will return to the issue of people being switched off by the British process, which has a bearing on the kind of electoral system that one uses. Some of the evidence coming out of the GLA elections indicates that the elderly, who are the most likely to vote, find it quite difficult and confusing. A number of mosques reported high levels of people asking for explanations because of language challenges and not being able to understand quite what was happening. It is important that we look at all of those factors.
	We also know that in polls asking essentially whether people agreed that Labour has an overall majority because it won more seats, the NOP poll gave a figure of 57 per cent and the YouGov poll gave 52 per cent. There is already evidence to suggest that people recognise the outcome and accept that it was right, which is also important.
	I would like to pay tribute at length, but I do not have time, to my noble friend Lady Gale for her incredible work. She is the only woman, apart from the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and I, who has spoken in this debate voluntarily—if I might put it that way. I pay tribute to all of her work, particularly that in support of the Welsh Labour Party, her work on elections and also, of course, her work for women.
	In the Commons in 2005, 19.8 per cent of Members are women. That is the highest percentage, but it is going up very slowly. There is a considerable way to go to get to where I would like it to be. Minority representation is at 2.3 per cent, which compares with 7.9 per cent of the population. We still have work to do to make sure that we have correct representation, but I pay tribute to my noble friend for her work on that.
	The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, referred to the independent Power Inquiry, chaired by my noble friend Lady Kennedy, which is very important. I hope to do a final report later this year. The inquiry has had eminent speakers, including my right honourable friend Robin Cook and the right honourable Michael Howard. Without pre-empting the report, which I have not seen, I think that it will say that there should be a combination of the importance of making sure that we have direct and wider debate and engagement by government and more participative decision-making, which I think that noble Lords would support, as well as putting PR in that context. I look forward to seeing the report.
	The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, specifically asked what would have happened on the death of a candidate in Glasgow Springburn, which is the Speaker's constituency. I am told that there would not be any major implications—Heaven forfend that it should happen!—and that another Speaker would be elected in another place. There would be a by-election as usual. I will not go into more detail of the noble Lord's speech, which I found extremely interesting, not least because I have addressed the issue of first past the post.
	I had a wonderful image of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, surrounded by angels. I was a little alarmed that he had sent away people who had come to him for advice and support. I do not really believe that the noble Lord would do that: he would take up their cases and would be very vigorous in so doing. Under our system, it is important that when MPs are elected two things should happen. First, the electorate should recognise that they are the elected MPs, that they should turn to them, and that that is the responsibility of MPs. Secondly, MPs should make sure that they represent their constituents and not just their party or the constituents who voted for them. Noble Lords who were Members of another place will be exemplars of the long tradition where MPs have done and sought to do precisely that. It is very important that that is seen to happen, because that is also a fundamental part of democracy.
	I was very interested in what the noble Lord said about STV. I noted that not all noble Lords on his Benches would agree with him. The noble Lord knows well the advantages in giving people the choice of which candidates are elected on a personal as well as a party basis. It offers a choice of proportionality and has a retention of geographic link. We can see from Northern Ireland that the disadvantages can be candidates who fight each other and will fight rivals within their own party. Politicians have told me that that can lead to highly parochial political campaigning. It is at the cost of campaigning on national issues if it becomes very parochial. That would have to be taken into account.
	I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Corbett of Castle Vale for addressing the comments of two Liberal Democrat MPs and I am extremely grateful for the noble Lords who have supported my junior status as being appropriate. I may not have the rank, but I hope that I speak with the authority. That is all that I would say to that.
	My noble friend made some very interesting comments about the European parliamentary elections and the regional list system of PR. I had hoped that we would have a conversation about the d'Hondt system because I have with me everything there is to know about it, including who he was. All I can say is that he had to be a professor of mathematics, did he not? My noble friend sought to highlight the difficulty of breaking the link with the constituent. The system has advantages, given that elected MEPs are not left to deal on their own with the needs of up to 700,000 constituents, but there is always a question about the link between the constituent and his representative.
	The noble Lord, Lord Garden, again raised very important issues regarding the Armed Forces. I was much taken with his argument that as servicemen and women were in the vanguard for postal voting, perhaps they could form the vanguard of the next wave of new voting systems. Clearly, we have to pick up these issues properly. I am not in a position to do that now, but I will make a commitment to arranging a meeting between officials and the noble Lord to ensure that they are pushed forward both within my own department and the Ministry of Defence.
	The noble Lord also pointed out that Commonwealth citizens are no longer able to use the proxy vote as they might not have any family in the UK. I am told that that is not right, but I shall write to the noble Lord with a full answer.

Lord Garden: My Lords, I merely said that it is difficult for them because they might not have any family living in this country. Of course they are allowed to.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, that is a fair point and one that we shall pick up on at the meeting.
	The essence of the remarks made by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, was the whole question of revitalising democracy, which is a big subject in itself. The Hansard Society has undertaken quite a lot of interesting work on this, such as looking at why young people can get engaged in certain voting systems on TV programmes—not least in my house, and at great expense to their parents—and why people become involved in particular campaigns. There seems to be no lessening of momentum among people to become engaged in the small-p political process, rather it takes place at the transference of that engagement into the party political process. Politicians bear a huge burden because they can become political-junkie types when what we really need is something much more populist.
	The latest work done by my noble friend Lord Puttnam in his commission on Parliament in the Public Eye is quite interesting in what it has to say about the communication of Parliament. I commend those recommendations to noble Lords, but I do not have time to read them out now. Perhaps the noble Viscount will take up those issues with my noble friend because some interesting work has been done.
	The noble Lord, Lord Jacobs, asked me a direct question, but I do not have an answer that I am prepared to give at this point. I shall take it up separately with him. It is not that my officials are not very good—they are—but that we simply cannot provide a sufficiently satisfactory answer that I am prepared to put on the record. The noble Lord will have to forgive me. For the record, the two questions he put to me concern parity with the Conservative Party and the proportion of Liberal Democrats within your Lordships' House. I will endeavour to respond and put a copy of my reply in the Library.
	As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, made an excellent point about the value of the vote and the importance of people feeling that their vote is not wasted. That does not always come from introducing a different electoral system; it is more about participating in democracy, even if your party does not win. A much wider debate is to be had about how we engage people in democracy so that they want to participate. That in turn goes back to the role of the MP. Even if people do not vote for the MP, he or she is their representative and should be used as such.
	The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, talked about the alternative vote and the Jenkins report. I have seen AV in operation in Australia and personally I think that it is an interesting approach. It fulfils my test of simplicity in that people can understand it, but for those who seek greater proportionality, it does not provide anything in that direction.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I was not discussing or advocating AV on its own, but in the context of AV-plus, the proposal made by the Jenkins committee.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord has pre-empted exactly what I was going to say. I am conscious that the noble Lord pointed out that the much-missed Lord Jenkins sought to establish a system that would achieve both of the aims we are looking for. However, it is a complex system and Lord Jenkins was the first to say that it would take a long time to set up, given its complexity. That is one of its difficulties.
	I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about the importance of vision and accept absolutely that all parties have a real responsibility to think about vision and engagement. I was asked when legislation is to be brought forward. The noble Baroness will not be surprised to hear me say, as soon as parliamentary time allows. I do not know at this point where we are on the legislation since I do not have policy responsibility for it. However, I shall let the Baroness know.
	Briefly—I am going over my time only because I have been interrupted; I hope that noble Lords will allow me to do so—I want to deal with the specific question put to me by my noble friend Lord Lipsey. He asked me what the Government's review will do next. We have an internal piece of work under way which will feed into a new ministerial committee on constitutional affairs, the composition and terms of reference of which we have ensured were made available on the website this morning. Again, for the record, its terms of reference are to co-ordinate the Government's policy on electoral issues and the democratic process, and to report as necessary to the Ministerial Committee on Constitutional Affairs. The sub-committee is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and has serving on it a range of representatives from different parts of government. A copy of a list of the members will be placed in the Library and I shall send one to my noble friend. Also, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor referred to a piece of work being undertaken by officials to bring together all the information we need so that it can be fed into the committee.
	My noble friend also asked about the words of my noble and learned friend about the groundswell for change. I went back to check this and found that the most extensive study of public opinion undertaken was conducted in 2003 for the Independent Commission on PR. In its conclusions it found that surveys revealed that attitudes were highly dependent on the way the question was asked. On the whole, electoral systems are not something on which most people have definite views. Respondents were shown examples of different ballot papers, first past the post, party lists and so forth, and asked to rank them. First past the post got 41 per cent, AMS 29 per cent and party list 25 per cent. So there is a majority preference for PR, but if people are asked about a second-choice run-off, first past the post secured a clear majority. When my noble and learned friend referred to that, he was quoting from the latest detailed research that has been undertaken. Again I declare an interest in that my husband served on that committee and that YouGov commissioned the poll. However, my husband did not deal with it. So I do not think that my noble and learned friend was incorrect when he described it in those terms.
	My noble friend also asked about how people will become involved in and consulted on this exercise. I do not yet have an answer because the new ministerial sub-committee has not yet met. I am not able to pre-empt its deliberations. We have indicated that a referendum would be the way forward and we remain absolutely 100 per cent committed to that.
	I conclude by saying that democracy is probably the most precious thing we have. The prerequisites for change are that we have to understand through serious analysis exactly what we are seeking to do. I tried to outline at the beginning of my remarks where the objectives might lie. We need absolute clarity of purpose and outcome for the system; that is, what would be achieved by change, and what would not. The system has to be understandable and should command a high level of support because the watchword for this, more than anything else, will be public confidence in what we are doing. Each of the systems that have been put forward and those currently in use present different challenges, result in different outcomes, and offer us different things. So having a coherent vision is crucially important. While I know that some noble Lords are impatient, and I can understand why, this is something we must get right.
	I am grateful to my noble friend for initiating this debate.

Lord Lipsey: My Lords, my man from Mars will enjoy reading this wide-ranging and well informed debate. There have been some very notable contributions and I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part, and the many who popped in to listen.
	I am biased of course, but in some of the speeches from the supporters of the first-past-the-post system I did have a slight sense that they feel that it is a house built on a cliff that is crumbling beneath their feet. I hope that I am quoting him aright, but I particularly enjoyed the rally cry to battle of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. He said that the,
	"case for electoral reform is not as overwhelming as people think".
	That suggests a degree of flexibility which is extremely welcome.
	The noble Baroness is quite right about opinion on electoral reform before the election in 2003; she quoted from her husband's excellent polling work on the PR commission. But things have changed since this election, which is why we are having our debate today.
	I want to venture one other comment. A wide range of views was expressed, of course, but there was a very strong emphasis, particularly in the contributions of the defenders of first past the post, on the importance of the constituency element. With the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who I know is an STV man, that was a feature of the speeches of every noble Lord who spoke for reform. I detect something of a movement towards consensus, although there will still be disagreement around at least the AV element within the AV-plus solution that was put forward by Lord Jenkins.
	I thank all the speakers, but especially the noble Baroness for her indefatigable energy in pursuing answers to the questions and her extraordinary willingness to write to those noble Lords for whom she had not been able to obtain answers. As far as I am concerned, she can come here in place of the Lord Chancellor any time. I thank everybody for their participation one final time. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Latin America

Baroness Hooper: rose to call attention to recent developments in Latin America; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, I was pleased to hear the very good news last Thursday that I had been successful in the ballot for this debate on developments in Latin America. Having waited patiently for all of last year for my luck to change, I was not prepared to say no when my chance came. Nevertheless, with the State Opening having taken place only last week and the break-up for the Whitsun Recess being today, time has been short, which has meant that a number of people who could have made significant contributions have sent me their apologies instead.
	I shall name but a few: my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, the former Foreign Secretary, who always speaks with knowledge and authority; the noble Lord, Lord Levy, the Prime Minister's special envoy to Latin America; the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, who is even now speaking at a seminar in Madrid on this very subject as a vice-president of Canning House; and my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lord Ashcroft, who have considerable first-hand knowledge of Cuba in particular. In spite of the short notice, I am absolutely delighted that your Lordships' House has not failed to produce a list of distinguished speakers and I am most grateful to all of them.
	Today is also the first day on which we have our major timed debates at the end of the week's Business rather than on a Wednesday afternoon. Perhaps it is appropriate that a debate on the New World should be the one to test these new procedures. We shall be testing also our new Foreign Office Minister in the Lords. The bright spot in all this is that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, as the Minister who is now responsible for Latin American relations, will be able to let us know his initial reactions and underline his priorities. I am most grateful to him for deciding to forgo attending the EU-Rio Group meeting in Luxembourg, important as that is, in order to respond to this debate in your Lordships' House.
	I have spoken previously, on numerous occasions, about Latin America as a regional power and in relation to individual countries. I do so again because I consider Latin America to be a vitally important part of the world. Not only is it important for us on a bilateral trade basis, but it is emerging as a global player in world trade and world institutional terms.
	The main object of today's debate is to ensure that the United Kingdom is aware of this fact at a political level, even if the region is no longer on the Foreign Office's priority list. As long as I remain in a position to do so, further reforms of the House of Lords permitting, I shall continue to remind Her Majesty's Government—of whatever political complexion—of these facts if they fail to take them into account.
	Perhaps I may digress with a more general comment on how disappointed I was during the recent general election campaign that barely a mention of the United Kingdom's international role in the world was made by any of the political parties, other than with reference to Iraq and, now and again, to the European Union. I fear that we are becoming a very inward-looking country; that is, with the exception of the world of sport and football in particular.
	However, if we are still a trading nation, we must focus on our best-possible trading partners and the ones we know best. To omit the Latin American countries would be a grave mistake. Even if self-interest is not at stake, one of the consequences of globalisation is that we must learn to work with other countries in a variety of ways. So it is not just about trade, but about peacekeeping, about the fight against terrorism, the fight against drugs and so on. To seek out new friends only to neglect old ones does not really get us anywhere.
	I intend therefore to attempt to provide an overview of the region; to consider the implications of some recent developments; and then, if time permits, to touch on some issues that highlight the part played by Latin American countries in the global economy and global institutions. I feel confident that other speakers today, from their individual experiences and points of view, will add flavour and seasoning to the debate.
	I am aware of the danger of generalising, even I inevitably regionalise. I do not forget that the 19 countries of Latin America, from Mexico in the north, through the Central American countries—not forgetting Cuba and the Dominican Republic—and down to Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of Patagonia, are each very distinctive and sovereign nations.
	However, together, they comprise one quarter of the world's population. They represent one third of the United Nations and they have six members on the UN Security Council. They also contain two of the most populated cities in the world—Mexico City at around 22 million people and Sao Paolo at around 19 million people. Brazil, Mexico and Chile are stars, in economic and many other ways, in anyone's terms.
	The region has vast natural resources: oil and gas; water; precious stones and metals; human resources; and the agricultural products which form so much of the region's trade.
	When I first went to Latin America as a post-graduate law student in Ecuador in the mid-1960s, military rule and populist economic polices had created instability and closed economies throughout the region. People used to joke that a golpe or coup d'état was a cheaper way of changing the government than holding a general election. What they would have thought of our debate on electoral reform a little earlier, I am not quite sure. At that time, oil wealth was only just on the horizon, and Venezuela, with its vast resources of oil as well as of water, gold and other commodities, was a rising star. Since that time, I have been to the region on many occasions as a Minister. I was not a Foreign Office Minister; I went as a health Minister. I have led trade missions there, and, as president of Canning House, I have organised, and spoken at, conferences throughout the region. I have also gone to the region for holidays to enjoy the wonders of the environment that Latin America offers such as Iguassu—the waterfalls between Argentina and Brazil—and the Galapagos Islands, not to mention the beauties of Latin America's cultural heritage.
	Since that time, of course, things have changed. All Latin American countries now have democratically elected governments, most with strong presidencies, and there is undoubtedly more openness, transparency and freedom of expression, which in turn give rise to more accountability, if only through the media. Although, as in many parts of the world, confidence in institutions and the political class has fallen during the past decade, that is a result of economic underperformance, falling living standards and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor. That has been the cause, for example, of the recent problems in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
	In this context, the role of parliamentarians is very important. I wish to endorse the work of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in particular the United Kingdom branch, in welcoming delegations from Latin America and sending UK delegations out to enable exchanges of views and to explain different ways of doing things so that we understand each other. But the parliamentary role—or the congressional role—in many countries of Latin America is not as good as it should be. However, we look forward to the coming elections in Argentina, which are due to take place in October.
	On the trade front, the region remains heavily dependent on primary commodity exports, which leave it vulnerable to fluctuation in the terms of trade. As far as foreign trade goes, however, the region has become much more open in the past decade, with exports rising from 15 per cent of GDP in the first half of the 1990s to more than 20 per cent since 2000.
	The United States is the most important trading partner for Latin American countries. Proximity and communications are factors, although trade diversification has increased.
	China is the current phenomenon; it is becoming an increasingly important market for the region's metal and soya producers. I hope to be able to return to the subject of China, as it is also involved in much direct investment in Latin America and is entering into trade agreements.
	In the context of foreign trade, Mexico shines out because it accounts for around 50 per cent of the regional trade. At the same time, as part of all these changes, we have seen the rise of trade blocs such as Mercosur for the southern cone countries, the Andean Community for the mountainous regions of the south-west and the NAFTA agreement between Mexico and the other North American countries. We have also seen bilateral and multilateral agreements with the European Union and other international bodies and there are moves towards a free trade area of the Americas.
	The trade situation looks good. In terms of growth forecasts, the OECD considers that Latin America has increased its growth above world levels, having enjoyed a few years of very robust export performance and improved terms of trade, against an OECD prediction of world growth that is revised to 2.9 per cent for this year. Brazil, for example, which grew by 4.5 per cent in 2004, is likely to grow by 3.5 per cent for this year. Indeed, Brazil has been the beneficiary of one of three country-specific OECD programmes, the others being China and Russia, and this has been highly successful. It looks very probable that Brazil will follow Mexico as a full member of the OECD.
	I recognise that there is much more that I could and perhaps should say, but time does not permit. I also recognise that this is not just a government issue. We are fortunate in this country to have institutions such as bilateral chambers of commerce, cultural societies and Canning House, the Hispanic and Luso Brazilian Council. We also have the Economist Intelligence Unit, to which I am most grateful for some of my facts, and which provides a wonderfully comprehensive service. I refer also to the Institute for the Study of the Americas and, of course, the excellent group of Latin American ambassadors and our representatives in the region. Although diminishing in number, they are first class in quality.
	As a former president of Canning House, I should like to refer to just a few of the programmes, seminars and information services that it has provided in the past few months. There was a conference on the opportunities in PPP in Mexico and one called "The Dominican Republic: Opportunities for Foreign Direct Investment". There was a seminar on "Politics & Poverty Reduction: DfID Experiences in Peru"—where, sadly, the programme has been closed down. There are also events covering growth sustainability in Latin America and, most importantly, one in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank, called "The Emergence of China: Opportunities and Challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean". That probably is a subject worthy of a completely separate debate, and I look forward to that possibility.
	Apart from the size and potential of these countries for the future and the added reasons why investment in and collaboration with those countries is becoming more reliable, let us not forget in our approach to the so-called modernising of our relations with them the significant historic and traditional links dating back virtually to 1492. In the period of the first Elizabeth, a lot of the booty which was won by her sailors came from the Americas—Latin America, the new world.
	Through George Canning, there was support for the liberation movements in the early part of the 19th century and recognition for the new nation states. In 1853, we were the first country in the world to recognise Paraguay as an independent country, yet one month ago, we closed the embassy there, which in fact operated at negligible cost. We have just celebrated the UK recognition of Colombia's independence 180 years ago. Again, we were the first country to do so. Last week on its Navy Day, the Chilean Navy recognised that Admiral Lord Corcoran was its founder.
	In conclusion, I wish to contend, as forcefully as I can, that a policy of benign neglect in our relations with Latin American countries, which is what I believe we are seeing from the Government through the FCO and the DTI, is wasteful and ignores the facts. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, who has secured this debate so early in this Parliament. She has been consistently active both here and through Canning House; she has many bilateral contacts and has fostered good relations with the countries of Latin America. She and I will participate in meetings in August in Paraguay, where we have just closed down our embassy, and Bolivia, following up the important mission from the Bolivians at Westminster last October. I shall return to that later.
	I echo what the noble Baroness said in expressing her appreciation that my noble friend Lord Triesman, in his first outing as Minister for Latin America, is here today in that capacity.
	Latin America is generally thought of as being Uncle Sam's back yard. One never meets Latin Americans who quite like that idea, but, short of getting Costain to move it somewhere else, there is not much they can do about it. The populist strands that are part of the history of many Latin American countries are tinged with a touch of xenophobia based on that unbalanced relationship. It is, for similar reasons, a continent—just as much as Africa and Asia in different ways, but with different points of emphasis—where the need to attract foreign direct investment is complicated by that degree of schizophrenia and is part of the central political debate.
	Where can we see that there might be some added value in our involvement? It is just as true in Latin America as it is in eastern Europe, central Asia or any other part of the world, that advocacy of democratic principles, both directly and in the pattern set by the European Union, cannot be underestimated. There have been positive developments in Latin America in recent years: far fewer countries are now guilty of showing a lack of respect for human rights. There is more political pluralism, and indigenous groups for many years excluded are in principle more included in the voting lists and so on. But there is still chronic inequality in most parts of the continent.
	The World Bank has just produced a study, saying that the greater political purchase garnered by Indians and other indigenous peoples has not translated yet into an improvement in their lot. I am indebted to the Latin American Weekly Report for that information. That is partly to do with patterns of involvement. We have our own history in the NGOs and trade unions; they have to do their own job in their own way, in their own environment. Trade unionists, operating on the universal principles of the ILO, have said that the privations experienced by people in Colombia—as we sit here today—are almost inconceivable in the 21st century. They include assassinations, torture and all the rest. We salute our comrades in that environment.
	During the Earth summit in Rio in 1992, I was privileged to chair the global meeting of trade unionists concerned with the environment and sustainable development. One cannot underestimate the dilemmas of workers confronted by the reality that logging may be their only possible way of staying alive. The same is true of cocoa growing. What would you say if you were in a group that was told that, in an area that was receiving $500 million a year from cocoa—which of course with a few other chemicals attached soon becomes cocaine—the growing must be closed down, when in effect nothing is there to replace it? That $500 million has just gone. What would you do if you were working in that environment? You would fight pretty hard to keep the cocoa growing.
	The indigenous peoples still find time-lags in their involvement. That is why in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, there has been little or no reduction in inequality in income distribution. The quality of public services is much lower in indigenous areas; and direct influence over services such as schools is much less. Democracy and equality go together in Latin America, as they do in all parts of the world. That sort of pattern is another thread in the general trend towards populism in much of Latin America and in the appeal of President Chavez in Venezuela.
	The informal or "black" economy is on average 50 per cent in all that territory. What does that mean? There are no rights for workers and, by definition, no framework for law and tax and so on. It is not easy, either, for the development agencies to get to grips with that, as it is all outside the measured economy. So there is often a pattern whereby the political class is seen to be living in a totally different world from the people.
	Of course, that is not a new challenge. I do not know whether the following incident happened when my noble friend Lord Whitty was general secretary of the Labour Party, but our mutual friend Alex Kitson, who was then chairman of the international committee of the Labour Party used to go to visit Fidel Castro every year in Cuba. There they were, sitting on the veranda with the sun setting over the Caribbean, the palm trees waving, and each of them having a couple of drinks. At one point, Alex said to Castro, "Fidel, may I ask you a question?". Fidel said, "Alex, my friend, of course—what is your question?". Alex said, "Fidel, I've been coming here all these years, and you are always sitting here. You offer me a drink, and it is marvellous to see the sunset over the Caribbean. But before now you have always smoked a big cigar, and this year you are smoking a very small one. Is there any reason for that?". "Well spotted, Alex," says Fidel; "I am trying to get closer to the people".
	What is the role of parliamentarians? Where do we fit in? Well, we fit in with difficulty. I say that with some experience of various contexts and of wearing different hats. One thing that I am clear about is the fact that there is no point in just having bland agendas which just say, "We love you, and you love us". That does not get you anywhere, when there are such big gulfs in understanding between the typical British multinational, the typical South American populist politician and their constituencies. Yet, we embrace our friends and comrades as part of the joint parliamentary groupings. Along with my Bolivian opposite number, who is a member of the senate, I am president of the Anglo-Bolivian parliamentary group. It is in that capacity that we are having our meetings in La Paz in August. We hope that we can help knock some heads together, because it is very important that we are able to address specific issues concretely.
	There are other means of contact. Last week, I gave some hospitality to eight Bolivian mayors who came here under the auspices of the Local Government International Bureau. I believe that that was a first from Latin America; it was very commendable. For people like that to go home realising that we do not all have horns and a tail is important in helping to close the gulfs of misunderstanding. When we roll up our sleeves and get involved, we may make mistakes; but as long as people continue to trust our good will and credentials, we have to get stuck in—even by raising questions that are not immediately on the agenda.
	Let us take the question of 50:50 participation equity stakes. There is lateral thinking from Gordon Brown and others about equity participation in housing in this country: what about a bit of lateral thinking about equity stakes in some of the multinational oil operations in Latin America and other parts of the world? After all, no one in Saudi Arabia gets more than 49 per cent from overseas, and that is not thought to be a country worth taking over because it is not a democracy. So we have to be objective about what is needed to get people to feel that we respect their patrimony in a world whose history includes a degree of paranoia about the rape of the preceding generations' minerals and land.
	We are particularly keen, in the light of all that, to be involved in our meetings in La Paz with the British majors—BP, Shell and BG—and we have an agenda for discussion. Although a tough hydrocarbons law has just been adopted in Bolivia, the handling of the implementation stage must be considered. In the past year, the price of oil has gone up to the best part of $50 a barrel, and that cannot fail to affect energy economics. Energy economics are changing rapidly around the world at the moment, not least because of what is happening in Iraq and Iran.
	We must contribute technical expertise in negotiation. You do not just take your ball home. The history of trade unions in this country over the past 200 years is that, if you take your ball home, you have achieved nothing. It is only when you have signed an agreement that states how you are going to operate that you have achieved advances for your members. We must diplomatically get people to appreciate that that means a negotiating technique with governments, the private sector and multinationals, which is quite complicated. It also means that when an agreement is signed, it must be delivered for the duration of that agreement. Bridge building is not assisted by the parties on either side of a bridge sticking gelignite under their end of it and saying that if they do not get what they want the bridge will be blown up. It may be thought to be a friendly prelude to discussion, but it is not the one that I would recommend.
	In my contribution to the Queen's Speech debate a few days ago, I said that I was pleased that my noble friend Lord Triesman had shown an active interest in this matter and was very supportive of the round table approach and of getting down to brass tacks on the issues that divide the parties. Multinationals and British companies have major interests in Bolivian oil and gas, which are that country's major resource. The multinationals, we in Parliament, Whitehall and Ministers all have different responsibilities, but we can keep the agenda going forward if we work together. I am sure that my noble friend will think that I am trying to teach him to suck eggs, but the mission statements of government departments could be more finely honed on the subject of how we fit together. It is not just that somebody has the major responsibility and should be left to get on with it. There are issues of state here, as well as issues for private interests. I look forward to further contact with the Minister before our mission in Bolivia.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend was successful in the ballot because this is an important debate. I am much less delighted that it has been tabled for today. Only for such a good friend would I still be here on the last day before a break.
	My experience in Latin America has come in a number of different ways. I have been on delegations to Cuba, Uruguay, Peru, Guatemala and Nicaragua with the IPU. Some of those trips were fascinating experiences, such as when I went to Nicaragua with the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd. Our meal cost 250,000 of whatever the currency was and there was no note bigger than 1,000. The restaurant had to set up a table with two men to count the money before we could say we had paid the bill and depart. The two men were sitting next to a pool with a crocodile in it, and we felt it was very important that our money should be right.
	Inflation was a major issue in Latin America. When I first visited Peru as a private individual, we were advised to pay for dinner by course because prices went up so fast that by the time you finished eating the meal would cost more. There were no stamps. You had to go to the post office to send anything. You joined the queue and the price of postage depended on the time you paid. I believe that Latin America has been through certain blips with its currencies but, on the whole, they are much more stable now and inflation is not at that level.
	The second way that I have visited Latin America is as a tourist travelling for pleasure. I have been to Mexico, Peru and Brazil. I visited Manaus on the Amazon. I am concerned to read about deforestation there, and hope that the Amazon forest remains as the most marvellous forest in the world. A tropical forest of that type takes centuries, perhaps even millions of years, to grow. It cannot be easily replaced. I have also visited Argentina where I saw some of the most beautiful and elegant women in the world in Buenos Aires.
	The third way that I have visited Latin America, and the way that I wish to speak about, is through my position as chairman of Plan International, which is an NGO working in a number of Latin American countries. Through Plan, I have been to Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador and seen the work being done. At one time, Plan had to pull out of Peru. Shining Path was a force there and it became so dangerous that we could not allow people to continue working. That danger is over now, but I am concerned to see people in recent programmes on television saying that they would welcome the return of Shining Path. That alarms me. There was a recent programme in which people in Peru were saying that they were not happy with things as they are and that they felt that the government were not coping. I cannot comment, other than to repeat what I saw on television, but I would like to know what the position is and to be reassured that we are not going to have Shining Path back.
	Until fairly recently, I was the UK chairman of Plan International and I was a member of the international Plan board for 12 years. Plan International is an international humanitarian child-centred development organisation, without religious, political or governmental affiliations. Child sponsorship is the foundation of the organisation and its child-centred community development. It works in partnership with other local organisations and with the participation of local people and communities at all levels. It works with local NGOs. Very often, grants are given—although I do not know whether that happens in Latin America—and the Department for International Development has been very good in supporting Plan.
	As I said, we work with other charities. I particularly remember working in Bolivia with Pro Mujer, which means, "For Women". It is a body that operates a small rotating credit scheme. It is extraordinary how difficult it can be for women, particularly in really poor communities, to get a few dollars to start up a small business for themselves. I saw women who had been given as little as $10 or $20 and who had set up a market stall selling soup. They had made a great success of it. The women are very reliable. They handle the credit union themselves. They pay the money back and when they do so they often lend it to the group so that another woman can be financed. It makes a huge difference to the lives of those people. In microeconomics, NGOs can do a tremendous amount.
	In Peru, I went to see a very small area—I do not know whether you could call it a village or a hamlet—called Rujero. When I visited other places in Peru where we were doing work in health clinics there were mayors, bands and lots of welcome and it was all very impressive. But Rujero was a much smaller place. For the 30 years that it had existed, every drop of water had had to be carried there by hand, or on the back of a donkey. Plan provided the expertise and money to run a pipeline the 30-odd kilometres to the nearest water supply, a natural spring. Right in the middle of the village there was one standpipe for water. It was so exciting to the people of the village that the headman had to turn the system off every so often because the children would dance around the tap with glee and turn the water on, delighting that water was there. We believe that all those amenities are there at the turn of a tap, and yet people have had to carry water all that distance for so many years. Again, it was only a small thing, but it had changed the lives of those people. The hours that had been spent going to get water could now be used more productively to prepare food or do other things.
	I thank Lord Montgomery, who was such an expert on South America. Before my first visit to Ecuador, he said, "Do not let them put you on a plane between this place and that place; you must see for yourself what is happening there". I followed his advice, and it was excellent. I went to see Guayaquil, where people had settled in the middle of a swamp. Plan had co-operated to the extent that it was able to build up hardcore areas to walk on between the houses, which were built on stilts in the swamp. When we met the people over lunch, we asked them, "Why have you come to live here?". They answered, "For a better life". How bad must life have been for that to have been a better life? Now, years later, they no longer have a lorry bringing in the water—and they had to keep careful records of every drop anyone got; they now have a laid-on water supply that has turned it into a real village, and now people there do have a better life. Those people chose that way to settle and improve—I understand that it happens fairly often in Ecuador. They have seen the result of the effort and work that they had put in.
	In Canar up in the mountains, I saw people making Panama hats. Everyone imagines Panama hats come from Panama, but they do not; Ecuador is the number one source of Panama hats. People spent days at work and in the end they got hardly anything for all that work. One of the people from Plan Germany went out there and brought a hat back to Germany. A fashion magazine asked if she had brought anything back, and she said, "I just brought this hat". It was put on the front page of a German fashion magazine, and the magazine said that the hats were for sale. They thought that they might have a few buyers; 20,000 hats were ordered instantly. That has changed those people's lives completely. They have reached the point now where they go to world trade fairs; and Plan no longer works there. That is our aim; to make people so self-sufficient and successful that they no longer need an NGO's help. That is what has happened there; those people do their own dealing and trading. Instead of going through so many people and getting virtually nothing for their work, they are getting a really good return for their money. Those things are important.
	I fear that Chile and some of the other Latin American countries may pose a challenge to Australia in the wine industry, because they are getting a good reputation. Australia is so pleased to be doing best; most wine that comes into this country is from Australia. They have overtaken the French. Of course, the gemstones in Brazil are unbelievable and very beautiful.
	If we intend to build up tourism and personal visits in those countries, personal safety is the one thing that tourists are looking for. That used to be the hazard in Rio; if you went to Rio you were lucky if your whole busload of people were not attacked; sometimes all 40 were attacked. I am hoping that things have improved. The debate today addresses "recent developments"; it would be interesting to know whether that has changed. If you go back to the old pre-war film, "Flying Down to Rio", Rio was the place to go from the United States. But people will now only go somewhere they feel safe. It is no good saying that it would be delightful and enjoyable, if you are worried every minute that someone is going to attack you. Personal safety is important.
	There are so many things that you could talk about, and time is limited. When I was in Bolivia, I went to Alto Plano. It just so happened that I was there. I was asked to open what I was told was a greenhouse at a school. Noble Lords would almost have called it a chicken shed, as it had a few little windows at the top. In the Alto Plano everything freezes every night. The children were learning how to grow lettuce, which you could not possibly grow outdoors. They asked me officially to open the greenhouse—they had a big ribbon tied across it. I got a bit carried away when they said that I could either cut it with scissors or pull the ribbon. I thought that the scissors sounded great fun and impressive. I had forgotten that it was a primary school, so they had given them non-cutting-type scissors to be safe for the children. I sawed away with the scissors for quite a time, and in the end I had to resort to pulling the string.
	You could go on and on with such examples. In Bolivia they formed cookers out of the local clay. They took the person's saucepans and moulded the oven-top around them when the clay set, so that instead of having to use a lot of wood to make a fire to make a small meal, it economised on the fuel, and you did not get the whole room jet black and sooty in the way that you used to when they cooked on an open fire. I remember those open fires in the country in Australia. It really was a pretty sooty way of cooking.
	All those things can and will be done if there is goodwill and co-operation between NGOs and governments. There is a growing closeness between the various bodies that must benefit everyone. We see here all the time the exported mange-tout peas from Guatemala. That is an excellent export, because it is high value in relation to the weight of the crop; therefore, it is very profitable. Again, Plan has worked with people so that they understand. They must feel that they possess the project, not that someone is imposing it on them. I went to see a place where they were teaching people to grow broccoli, but unfortunately they had not visited again soon enough, and the broccoli were six feet tall. They said, "Do you think it is time to cut this crop?". You must really follow it up and show them. In that area in the past they had not known any vegetable except potatoes, so there was a degree of malnutrition due to the lack of green vegetables. All those exports are important, and the whole way of life is improving for people.
	As my noble friend Lady Hooper said, Latin America is made up of 19 countries. It is a vast and fascinating subject. I make no excuses for just talking about NGOs, because an important part can be played by organisations other than direct government organisations. Perhaps the most important thing about today's debate is that it enables Members of this House to show how much we care about this very special part of the world and to remind others of the continuing importance of Latin America.

Baroness D'Souza: My Lords, I, too, begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, and congratulating her on securing this debate. My knowledge and experience of Latin America is woefully incomplete. However, what little experience I have concerns a rather remarkable story that had dramatic beginnings.
	As many noble Lords will know, the British Council has a strong presence in Peru. In 2000, it worked with the Peruvian Press Council to develop greater access to information in the country and thus also to secure greater transparency. Many of your Lordships may remember that in November 2000, at precisely the date of our three-day international conference, then-President Fujimori disappeared. As I stood up to speak, the conference hall suddenly emptied of journalists. There had been a rumour that President Fujimori was reclaiming his Japanese citizenship and had effectively fled Peru.
	The rumour turned out to be true, and it created a wonderful opportunity to push for access to information in both law and practice. In Latin America in particular, access to public information is a big issue in that it is perceived as the essential component of transparency and the fight against corruption, inequality and authoritarianism. British Council policy, and its strength, is to work with civil society groups and to act as the interface between the people and the government. In that, it is highly successful.
	The perspicacious process begun in that year has continued and developed into a regional movement towards transparency and democratic accountability that has far-reaching consequences. The process itself is interesting. Following the initial international meeting that agreed the Lima Principles on Access to Information, there followed many more meetings. Some were national discussions involving the armed forces on how to provide legislation narrow enough to avoid misinterpretation of the law, yet wide enough to protect legitimate interests such as national security. I remember in particular that a seminar held in the ancient university city of Arequipa reserved the front two rows for senior armed forces personnel, who sat there resplendent in their uniforms with glittering medals—not a usual sight for a human rights gathering.
	Other meetings were at the more local level and concerned the implementation of laws into practices benefiting the rural population. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office provided the British Council with a two-year grant to disseminate the right of access to information to the local authorities, the judiciary, civil society and public officials. An ombudsman was appointed. A hotline was set up to receive and deal with complaints from all over the country. The first ever access-to-information law was passed in Lima in August 2002.
	A series of high-level meetings was held between the Peruvian Foreign Ministry and the permanent mission at the Organisation of American States, based in Washington DC. The result was the development of a co-ordinated policy to promote access to information throughout the Americas. In July 2003, the Peruvian delegation, working with the Peruvian Press Council, drafted an OAS resolution called Access to Information: strengthening democracy. The resolution was approved later that year.
	The speed of that process is, in the nature of such matters, breathtaking. But the process continued, with ever more efforts to persuade other Latin American countries to adopt enabling legislation. In October this year, the OAS will call a special session to exchange ideas and experiences with civil society organisations in information access. A document summarising best practices in the region would then become the basis for the OAS guidelines on access to information. In turn, that would act as an incentive for other countries in the region to adopt similar laws and practice.
	What is the point of this Peruvian story? At least two conclusions can be drawn. First, civil society organisations, which by definition occupy that space between the people and the government, are of vital importance in creating and maintaining democracy. In fact one might even go so far as to argue that, in the absence of a civil society community, transition from—let us say—authoritarian government towards democracy will be fraught and possibly fail. Civil society organisations tend to fill the vacuum that inevitably occurs during changes in political systems. What follows is that anything we can do to promote the strengthening of civil society—even in those countries where there is nothing approaching democracy—is a genuine democratic development. In the case of Peru, the synergistic forces of a new and open Foreign Ministry, and the Peruvian Press Council supported by the British Council, were impressive and effective.
	A second conclusion is that, of all the fundamental rights that individuals have—whether implemented or not—freedom of expression and access to information seem to be crucial in enforcing a degree of accountability on the part of government, and in affording people the opportunity to influence policies that affect their lives and livelihoods. In that sense, free speech, an independent media and access to information act together as the cornerstone of democracy.
	What makes the story stand out is the willingness of the Peruvian Government to work with civil society organisations, to adopt laws that would harness—and to some extent have harnessed—their own power, to make strong efforts to ensure proper implementation of laws and proper complaint mechanisms, and to promote transparency at the regional level. Those efforts have contributed—and will continue to contribute—to an ever-more democratic process at least in Peru, and possibly for the region more generally.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, in the first debate today, I declared an interest as an ex officio member of the board of the Conservative Party. It may be more relevant to make that declaration now as, shortly before the previous debate ended and this debate began, I was summoned to join a conference call of the board at two o'clock.
	I was conscious of infringing the rubric of your Lordships' House by not being present when the opening speaker—my noble friend Lady Hooper—began the debate. I made my peace with her and gained some insight into what she would say. In those circumstances, I hope that the House will recall the definition in Blackstone's law dictionary of an act of God as an act that no reasonable man would expect God to commit, and forgive me for speaking in the debate not having been present at the beginning. I apologise especially to the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, most of whose speech I also missed.
	I congratulate my noble friend on winning the ballot and introducing the subject, which is eminently worth while. I heard the remarks of my noble friend Lady Gardner and the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, whose speech I much enjoyed. My background to speaking is more modest than theirs, but perhaps worth recounting in the spirit not only of this debate, but of Latin American affairs.
	In 1964, I became engaged to my late first wife. When I announced it at breakfast, my brother—a lawyer and now a judge—said, "Ah yes; Brazil is one of the few countries where you can be married by proxy". It so happened that a proxy marriage was convenient, as my late first wife wished to leave the country on a Brazilian passport and travel thereafter on a British one; she was Anglo-Brazilian. We arranged that the civic ceremony, which is the critical one in Brazil, should take place on 3 March—my birthday, and therefore a date that we were likely to remember.
	On 4 March when I went to my office, fastening my seatbelt believing myself to be a married man, there was a telegram from the British consul-general in Sao Paulo, who was supposed to be representing me, to say that he had completely forgotten to go. I was therefore not married. We then had to devise another date between that and the church wedding in Sao Paulo that I would also be likely to remember. We chose St Patrick's Day on the grounds that the British consul-general was not likely to be taking part in Irish celebrations on that day. I was then married, and due to go out to be married in church on 6 April.
	In the week before 6 April, a coup occurred in Brazil against the then president, President Goulart. My late noble kinsman was at that stage Home Secretary, and the Foreign Office said that under no circumstances could the Home Secretary go into a war zone. The British consul-general in Sao Paulo, clearly anxious to make amends for the fact that he had not turned up at the initial civic ceremony, sent us a telegram that said, "All aviation gasoline commandeered. Have secured final place on final BOAC flight out of Sao Paulo for Mrs Brooke", as she then was. We sent back a stiff-upper-lip telegram that simply said, "Continuing to pack".
	Our faith in the oscillation of Latin American affairs was wholly confirmed, because Goulart moved to either Paraguay or Uruguay on the Wednesday. We flew out on the Thursday night, and I arrived in Sao Paulo on the Friday. The streets were still lined with tanks, which made for a new interpretation of a shotgun wedding. The rest of my family arrived at the weekend. The stock exchange, which had been shut for the whole of Friday, reopened on Monday and rose vertically by 85 per cent in the course of the day. In the index of a stock exchange, 85 per cent is a considerable amount of money. That greatly enhanced the celebrations of our church wedding, which occurred at six o'clock that evening. We honeymooned in Brazil and Peru but I fear that, before my first wife's death, I went back to Brazil on only a couple of occasions. Therefore, my credentials for speaking at large in this debate are extremely modest.
	On the other hand, in an international development debate in the last Session of the previous Parliament, I indicated that I had for 20 years chaired a British charity operating at 7,000 feet in the Andes in Peru. It started out as an archaeological charity working on Inca forts, and then became by way of the Inca canals a developmental charity as well. I shall not go over ground that I covered in that debate, however. After my wife's death, all three of my sons travelled widely in Latin America, wanting to know more about their mother's background; they were children or young people when she died. They travelled to at least two-thirds of the Latin American countries and, as a consequence, I acquired vicarious knowledge through them.
	I think that I am right in saying that the first reference to "Latin America" occurred as late as 1836. That would be later than the Monroe doctrine or the death of Canning. Yet, it coincided with the liberation movements and my former constituency in Westminster is studded with blue plaques to the liberators of various Latin American countries and who briefly lived in London during that time. Admiral Lord Cochrane, a British liberator of several Latin American countries and a predecessor of mine as the Member of Parliament for Westminster, is buried in the central nave of Westminster Abbey.
	It will be apparent from my modest credentials that I shall not make an exhaustive speech about every Latin American country. However, I shall mention a development that has been good, although it has not been accomplished without some vicissitude and controversy. I declare an interest as the pro chancellor of the University of London. Those who take an interest in Latin American affairs will be aware of The Americas published in 2003 by Professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, which is a powerful polemic which argues that we should be looking at the affairs of Latin America and the United States together and that there is an overlap between them. That is why he called it The Americas, to provide a composite and portmanteau title. Given that neither of the Libraries in this Palace has a copy of that book, although they have copies of a number of books that he wrote in the 1990s, I have not been able to verify that one of his points to illustrate where we started from was that, of the 10 richest people in the United States, one was the beneficiary of "old" money, the others all made their fortunes in their own lifetimes. Whereas, in Latin America exactly the opposite was true. Nine were the beneficiaries of "old" money and one is an entrepreneur who made his money from his own resources.
	Perhaps, in part, due to Professor Fernandez-Armesto's book, the University of London, which previously had within its School of Advanced Study an Institute of Latin American Studies and an Institute of United States Studies, decided at a council meeting in December 2003, over which I presided, that those two bodies would be merged into a single institute. Some of the American advisers to the original American institute had understandably felt that that was not right, but I am confident that it has been a thoroughly satisfactory development in terms of raising the profile of Latin America and Latin American studies in this country. In the first instance, it will be a three-year experiment and we shall have to see how it goes but, so far, the omens are good.
	I am, due to sympathy with my late wife's provenance, from time to time embarrassed about how little some of us know about Latin America. Therefore, my noble friend's initiative on starting this debate has been admirable and I hope that the initiative in the University of London will play some part in increasing our knowledge.

Lord Luke: My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lady Hooper for introducing this debate. Sadly, I disagree with her and my noble friend Lord Brooke, because one reason we in this country focus so seldom on that part of the world is that we use the all-embracing term "Latin America" and the even more all-embracing term, the "Americas". I always prefer to refer to the United States of America and Canada, when referring to north America and, when referring to points south, I prefer to say "central America" and "south America", because the focus is much more closely aligned to what one is talking about. However, I have great respect for their views.
	Most of what I shall say in this short speech will be about Argentina. However, I also wish to say something about south America as a whole. It is quite extraordinary that in the debate last Thursday on the Queen's Speech concerning defence and international affairs it seemed that there was nowhere in the world beyond Europe, except for Africa. Sadly, many African countries appear to be poorly governed and many people live in poverty. We are extremely distressed about that. However, that is also the case in many parts of the world. Why can we not focus more on such matters in south-east Asia, the Indian sub-continent and south America?
	There are several countries in South America where there is poverty—for instance, the favelas of Rio and the slums of Isla Marsial outside Buenos Aires. In the past, British investment has played an important part in the development of many South American countries—especially in railway systems, not least in the Argentine. There is enormous potential for future investment, in spite of some unsatisfactory economic regimes.
	I set foot in Argentina for the first time 50 years ago. It was then suffering under the corrupt and oppressive dictatorship of General Peron. I was there when there was, first, an unsuccessful revolt and then later in that year, 1955, a successful revolution when he was removed from power. My experience of that country during that visit, which lasted for a year, ranged from Buenos Aires, in particular, the northern provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Rios, Corrientes and Formosa, and right down to Rio Gallegos in the south. My old company, Bovril, which was why I was in Argentina, had estancias and meat-packing factories, I learned much about cattle and how to put them in cans.
	After that initial visit, I returned several times until the company was taken over in 1971. Sadly, I have not been back since but I have followed the fluctuating fortunes of Argentina ever since. Unfortunately, recent history has not changed the impression of economic instability that I first encountered in 1955, although from time to time things have appeared to be much improved, for short periods sadly, only to revert to hyper-inflation or other horrors.
	For example, in 2002, Argentina went from a country widely held up as a model of successful free market reform to one that defaulted on its public debt of some $155 billion. Since then there has been an enormous restructuring of Argentina's debt, where creditors have had to accept a cut in principal, a lengthening of maturity and a reduction in payment of interest.
	Despite that, Argentina's debt will still be more than $120 billion. Can the Minister say what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to ensure that the Argentine Government are encouraged to maintain fiscal stamina and to negotiate settlements with the large number of foreign firms that are owed so much? That might eventually attract the much-needed investment which would transform prospects for the Argentine economy in the middle and long term.
	I turn to a completely different subject. Last Sunday, the Sunday Express carried an extensive report that there was increased tension in the Falkland Islands and that 2,000 extra troops were being sent to boost the garrison. As we know, Argentina has always laid claim to these islands, which it calls the Islas Malvinas, and we accept that while in no way agreeing. Perhaps the Minister will enlarge on that situation. Is there any truth in the report in the Sunday Express and, if so, what contingency plans are there in case it develops into a dangerous situation? Can he confirm that a frigate or destroyer is on station off the islands? Can he also confirm that recently there have been joint exercises off the island between Argentine and British naval forces?
	Argentina is a great country of which I am very fond. It always seems to be able to pull out of its difficulties. It has great advantages. It is a most attractive and varied country ranging from the freezing and windy Tierra del Fuego in the south to the tropical forests of the north by way of some of the most productive countryside and farmland in the world. I can strongly recommend it to your Lordships if a visit is being considered.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for securing this debate. I appreciate that in doing so she has had to be patient. It is bad luck that it was listed for the Thursday before the Recess and there is a greater interest in this House than is suggested by the list of speakers.
	Nevertheless, it has been an extremely interesting debate. I cannot match the length or breadth of experience of previous speakers. I have visited Latin America three or four times in the past few years, notably Ecuador and Mexico. I visited Mexico City as part of an IPU delegation. Besides the official part of the visit, which was most interesting, I was able to see some of the shantytown areas through my interest in Juconi, the charity which works with street children. The scale of problems with which many countries in the region must deal defies the imagination.
	I was interested to hear about the experience of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parks, in this region. By no means was the infrastructure in place in the city of Guayaquil, which I also visited with Juconi. I am pleased that the part she visited was so improved, but vast areas still lack any services. The issues relating to the street children, in which I took a particular interest during my visit, would merit a debate in themselves and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who for some time has requested a debate on that subject, will be successful in securing one.
	I want to move to my second area of particular interest, fair trade, and then to take a more general look at the region. During my visit to Ecuador I took the opportunity to spend some time with a fair trade banana co-operative in El Guabo to see exactly what fair trade meant to them. It is reasonable to regard fair trade as the grown-up relation of free trade and after my visit, I felt very much that that was the case. The co- operative was founded in 1997 by some producers, all of whom have small landholdings, many fewer than 10 hectares. Once they get up into the mountains, they have fewer than two hectares and it is a challenge to make a living for yourself and your family on that amount of land. Furthermore, many employed workers.
	They could understand that within the regime to which they were selling their bananas it was impossible to make a living and they decided to set up the co-operative. It was founded in 1997 and the benefits they have been able to provide include healthcare insurance, a machinery co-operative, a packing station which they built themselves, and a lorry to take the bananas to the port of Guayaquil. They have also provided all kinds of training in first aid and in farming methods. They have much reduced and in some cases eliminated pesticide use, with all the health and ecological benefits that brings. They provide food baskets for those who fall on hard times through illness and so on and they have a democratic system of governance in their co-operative. All of this and more comes at the price of 1p on a kilo of bananas wholesale. That is a wonderful example of what "trade not aid" means.
	That model can be used by many other communities and producers. For example, in Ecuador, the flour producers are interested in moving towards such a model. In this country, it is incumbent on us to spend our money on fair trade produce and to promote the idea of fair trade. I commend supermarkets such as the Co-op which are trying to buy fair-trade produce and offer it to consumers.
	I am sorry that I do not have more time today to address the issue in detail, but I want to look at a wider picture which has been mentioned by many noble Lords. Latin America is rarely on the political radar here in Parliament or in the British media with the honourable exception of the BBC World Service. Latin America is certainly not a priority on the Government's agenda. I realise that not everything can be a priority and that the Prime Minister has decided to make Africa a UK and soon a G8 priority. I am sure that there are sound reasons for that with which I would not argue. There seems to be an all or almost nothing approach to some regions of the world and Latin America has been earmarked for almost nothing in terms of attention, despite its undoubted importance. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, said, it is a global player and it is time it was recognised as such.
	The lack of attention that is paid to Latin America is a great mistake in many ways. Its countries are classified as middle-income, but that masks a different reality. As mentioned today, 57 million people there still live in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day and I saw for myself what that means. Furthermore, 132 million live on less than $2 a day. They have no safety net of a health service and few services are on offer to them. The index which measures the difference between rich and poor indicates that that difference is growing.
	These matters are of concern to DfID, whose future programme is laid out in its 2004 regional assistance plan. The plan starts with a long apology for the closure of so many Latin American offices. Not only has DfID withdrawn from many of the countries; the British Council and the Foreign Office have done so too. No doubt that is a Treasury-driven policy but it is regrettable. Relations become more distant not only with individual countries but also with the NGOs within them. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, indicated the importance of the NGO sector in her illustration.
	The DfID paper is a good analysis of the situation in Latin America but it fails to draw sufficiently strong conclusions. I felt that DfID may have come to those conclusions but that they had been watered down during the ministerial approval process. I shall explain my criticism.
	For example, the plan talks of negative environmental trends and severe environmental degradation. That is a very topical issue, as noble Lords will have noticed from the reports of extensive logging in the Amazon, which has been far greater than any of us realised. But there was no suggestion in the DfID report or, indeed, in press reports this week of how countries, which can better afford to do so, should deal with that situation. We cannot expect Brazil to deal with it on its own.
	Brazil has already been recognised by the UK Government, the US Government and very widely within the world as a hub for change and development in Latin America. But Brazil has plenty of issues of its own—from extreme poverty and unemployment to antiquated red tape, which prevents foreign investment. The President is now trying to deal with that. He has made a fantastic start both at being an engine for change within the region and at getting his own country's house in order, but he is not a miracle worker.
	That is why I say that we should treat the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest as critical to the future of the world's climate. Its destruction is a disaster. We should treat it in the same way as a war zone because environmentally and actually that is what it is. Indigenous people, other Brazilians and westerners have been murdered over the felling and logging that has taken place there. We, as the international community, should be offering to help with policing and not simply wringing our hands.
	Another area in which both the Foreign Office and DfID need to be more explicit is in thinking about the identity of Latin America as a region. That is why I was particularly grateful for this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Luke, referred to terminology. I believe that terminology is important, and perhaps his was better. Certainly, the Brazilian Minister for External Relations came out with a very interesting quote. Indeed, it was so interesting that I had to write it down for my own speech. Ambassador Celso Amorim said:
	"In fact, the expression 'Free Trade Area of the Americas' rather makes one think of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, which, in the words of a certain nineteenth-century thinker, was in fact neither Germanic, nor holy, nor Roman, nor an empire".
	He certainly does not see that the area of the Americas and the offer of free trade is all that is understood by the rest of the world.
	In concluding my comments on Brazil, I recognise and applaud the contribution that that country has made in establishing an agreement between Mercosur and the EU and all the other initiatives that it is pursuing with the rest of the world.
	Finally, I turn to DfID's comments on poverty reduction strategies. It made a tactful understatement when it said that there is some concern that poverty reduction strategies have been driven more by donor demands than by national priorities and that ownership and civil society participation is weak. For me, that goes to the crux of some of the things that have happened within certain countries in Latin America over the past few years. The external demands of the poverty reduction strategies have, indeed, played a fearsome role in fostering so much discontent in societies throughout Bolivia and Ecuador. I have not been to Peru but I should be surprised if that were not also the case there. Such has been the discontent fostered by the demands upon those countries by outside institutions that democratic government has been almost impossible to achieve. Governments there cannot respond to their own agenda or to the mandate for which they were elected because they have to dance to the donors' tune. It is time that donor countries and regions understood that point.
	It is interesting that we are having this debate following the debate on democracy. If we as a country, together with the Foreign Office and DfID, are interested in promoting democracy in Latin America as a means to changing and underpinning development, then we must become an advocate for those countries and not allow the demands of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to take precedence.
	That was illustrated graphically during the recent problems experienced by Ecuador when it tried to create a social programme based on the difference between last year's and this year's oil prices. As noble Lords know, the price of oil has risen considerably as a result of the Iraq war. However, because of the terms laid down by the World Bank in 2003, it is not able to benefit from that windfall. It is not able to develop a social programme under those World Bank terms but must give back 70 per cent of the windfall to the bond holders. I believe that the arm lock in which the donors have placed these countries explains the political instability in some of them. The UK Government must make an effort to help the new President of Ecuador to move forward on the agenda that he has laid out.
	I could go through the other issues that Bolivia is facing, but I can see that I shall not have time to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, underlined some of them. Therefore, I simply say that it is very important that we listen to what the Bolivian people want before we come to a conclusion about what is in the best interests of the UK.
	With that, once again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, very much and hope that it will not be too long before we have another debate of this nature.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, it has been a most interesting and well informed discussion, including several fascinating personal travel experiences. I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Hooper on, yet again, securing a debate on Latin America.
	With so many of Her Majesty's Government's resources targeted towards the problems in Africa, it is all too easy to forget that there are problems just as serious and as urgent in other parts of the world. It is essential, therefore, that your Lordships' House keeps the spotlight on the developments in Latin American shining brightly.
	Some of your Lordships have chosen to highlight the problems of Colombia and Bolivia. There can be no doubt that, after 40 years of internal armed conflict and several unsuccessful attempts at negotiating peace, Colombia remains immersed in violence. The state remains pitted against irregular armed organisations that have become deeply involved in kidnapping, drug trafficking and terrorism. The FARC alone is thought to produce some 80 per cent of the world's cocaine, while the ELN is responsible for a large proportion of the 3,000 kidnappings carried out every year in Colombia.
	Meanwhile, in Bolivia, much of the past two years has been dominated by radical groups from the western highlands doing their best to prevent locally based multinationals exporting gas, as well as other products. Those groups have been blocking roads in order to force foreign investors to bow to their demands or leave. As a result, to avoid the disruption, Santa Cruz, the prosperous easternmost province, wants to gain autonomy from the central government in La Paz. There are fears that, if that regionalism becomes separatism, other Andean countries could fray.
	The Wall Street Journal this month warned that Bolivia was still the third biggest producer of cocaine. It stated that if the country's shaky government lost authority, it risked becoming an ungovernable narco-state. I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will agree with me on the very important point that it is essential for Her Majesty's Government to make certain that the rule of law and freedom of movement are preserved in Bolivia and to press for CAP reform, so that agricultural products from Bolivia and other Latin American countries are not made uncompetitive by subsidies and other trade barriers.
	I would also like to mention briefly a concern regarding Venezuela's announced plans to develop a civil nuclear programme, despite its enormous oil and orimulsion reserves, particularly in the light of Hugo Chavez's links with other regional leftists, including Colombia's Marxist narco-rebels. Will the Minister comment on the Government's assessment of that nuclear ambition, which could significantly affect the region?
	It is clear that some countries in Latin America are on an interdependent knife edge with similar problems of lawlessness, national debt, poverty and social inequality. The fraction in one country could tumble into the others.
	It is impossible in a debate on Latin America not to mention the importance of Mexico and its influence in the area. It has much in common with Brazil, to which I shall refer later. We must not forget that there are important presidential elections next year that could have serious knock-on effects on the country's successful economy and its position as a stable pillar of democracy in a troubled region.
	Brazil is the largest and most dominant country in Latin America. The BBC World Service stated in an extremely interesting programme last Monday morning that Brazil,
	"is a gentle giant awakening, despite its continuing problems"
	with, for example, the movement of landless rural workers.
	We in the West are constantly concerned with the reports of the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rainforest. However, we should be reluctant to criticise a country when we in the United Kingdom only a few centuries ago had many more vast forests than we have today. At the same time, I understand the country's need to develop its resources, be it in mining or agricultural development, like, for example, the renowned organic beef farming.
	Political stability is working hand in hand with a growing economy, enabling the country to look outwards and to help anchor the continent as a whole. Last year saw a couple of symbolic significant steps: first, the provision of a small Brazilian force in Haiti as a UN peacekeeping force; and, secondly Brazil's role in organising developing countries in the Doha negotiations.
	On the subject of trade, I shall comment briefly on the work of Mercosur, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. Mercosur was created with the goal of creating a common market and customs union between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The transition stage for that aim was started in 1995 and is due to finish next year, 2006. What advice and support are Her Majesty's Government providing for the completion of that project?
	I was so pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, spoke on Peru and the importance of a civil society. She spoke with great authority about a beautiful country, steeped in history, with no doubt another great future ahead of it.
	I was fascinated to hear from my noble friend Lord Brooke a polemic from the University of London about joining south, central and north America together to raise Latin America's profile. I shall follow that with great interest.
	My noble friend Lord Luke covered Argentina in his most eloquent speech. That is yet another country with great potential, and we ignore it at our peril.
	I hope that Her Majesty's Government can maintain a balance of keeping the pressure on Brazil to tackle its problems of poverty, equality and environmental degradation while supporting its moves to play a greater international role through its dynamic economy and its position as a stabilising power in the region.
	So where are south and central America going? In this technological era, the Internet is hastening development in the new world too. Those resources are improving people's education and understanding, from how to read to the importance of politics and human rights, such as the freedom of speech. We are witnessing a developing middle class with evolving views and knowledge that can be used in international terms, be it in trade or exchange in services.
	I am sure that the Minister, in his usual charming way, is about to tell us that the Government attach great important to this area. When does the Prime Minister next plan to visit any country in Latin America? I have contacted the Downing Street press office, which was unable to help me on the ground of security. I just wonder why Her Majesty the Queen is able to announce in the gracious Speech her future visits abroad, but the Prime Minister's trips are embargoed.
	I said that central and south America were a part of the world that we must keep high on the agenda at all times. It is vital that we maintain good relations with what will be an exciting and important power, regionally and on the international stage.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for giving the House the opportunity today to discuss Latin America. Her own experience and her commitment to the region since her studies in Ecuador are well known and admired. I know that she also, as she reminded us, spent some fruitful years as president of Canning House, a fine institution which is vital to our analytical efforts on Latin America. As I expected, she provided us, as have other noble Lords, with some new insights on this subject.
	I respond immediately to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings. While Her Majesty announces the intention to make state visits to various countries, it is the abiding custom not to announce the Prime Minister's visits in advance, for security reasons. That has been so across a number of governments. I guess at this stage it is important to do that. I can say that, in advance of Gleneagles, a number of leaders of countries in Latin America or their Foreign Ministers are visiting the United Kingdom. My own diary has a number of those visits.
	I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I felt, although they were not here, the spirits of the noble Lords, Lord Howell, Lord Moynihan and Lord Ashcroft, and my noble friends Lord Brennan and Lord Levy. I probably should add the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, whose record on human rights in Latin America is so impressive. We will soon be joined by Lord Foulkes, who as a Minister did a huge amount of work in the subcontinent as well.
	I have been Minister for Latin America for just three weeks. It is a responsibility that I am delighted to have, but I also recognise the depth of knowledge in this House compared with the knowledge that I have. Perhaps I may start with a brief look backwards.
	A number of noble Lords have referred to the long history of strong links between Latin America and the United Kingdom. I agree that there is a good deal to be proud of in the past three centuries. We have supported independence movements, headquartered as they were in Westminster at various times, as well as the economic development of several new states. In many ways that has left a remarkable legacy. We must now make full use of the links that were forged.
	The world has changed since Simon Bolivar sought sanctuary and inspiration in London, and since Britain was able to dominate trade with Brazil and Argentina. It is perfectly fair, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, asks, for me to say what my priorities are. They include security—both internal and external—and the development of democracy to try to ensure security. We want there to be trade between the global community and those 19 countries whether they are giants or small economies, with a thought to how the smaller economies can be lifted to become more prosperous economies. Priority must also be accorded to drugs, the subject where there is often a confluence of security issues and illegal trade issues. There should also be a priority in looking after the United Kingdom's own interests, whether in the Security Council or elsewhere.
	If there has been an emphasis on Africa, as both the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, and the noble Lord, Lord Luke, said, everyone knows that the Commission for Africa has a particular traction at this stage and in the run-up to Gleneagles and beyond. But that does not mean that Latin America will be neglected.
	I turn to Latin America and to the recent developments that have been the focus of today's debate. I shall share some thoughts on what it all means for our Government's engagement with the region. The debate has highlighted a number of specific reasons why we should be concerned—because it is a dynamic region which changes a good deal internally. I shall deal with some of the countries, albeit briefly.
	I begin with Bolivia, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Lea and many others. It is an area of concern because of recent instability, a matter that has been raised effectively today. Bolivia faces many challenges and we recognise that the Bolivian Government have a heavy and complicated agenda in 2005. Recent developments on the hydrocarbons law, calls for autonomy and feelings of social exclusion have all contributed to growing social unrest. The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, elaborated on those difficulties.
	The Government believe that the development of Bolivia's oil and gas sectors could and should play a significant role in Bolivia's future economic growth and development. But potential can be unlocked only if the legislative framework does not endanger existing or future investor confidence. We hope that Bolivian plans to hold a constituent assembly and extend decentralisation will strengthen social integration within the country. We have encouraged President Mesa to deliver sustainable political and economic reform and to resolve those social issues.
	Of course, we have our part to play, as the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, pointed out. We can hardly help people in their agricultural exports under the present CAP regime, so we shall work hard to ensure that it is fully reformed.
	I welcome the visit of my noble friend Lord Lea, the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, and, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, to that country and wish them success.
	Ecuador has also gone through a difficult period of instability, as noble Lords have mentioned. The former president's removal from office on 20 April following mass demonstrations calmed the situation on the ground. However, the reason for the protests remain. There is real public dissatisfaction with state institutions, including the congress. The new president, Alfredo Palacio, has an onerous task, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, so adequately illustrated, in strengthening democracy and state institutions, and in engendering confidence among the people of Ecuador in their elected officials. We shall help in any way that we can.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, and others mentioned Colombia, which is also important to us. We have not seen the same kind of political instability in Colombia, but the situation there is one that needs constant attention. I have seen the Colombian ambassador this week to discuss some of those issues. Colombia has suffered from over 40 years of internal armed conflict and, more recently, from the evils of the drugs trade.
	We support the Government of Alvaro Uribe and the efforts that he is making to tackle the inter-connected problems of armed conflict, illegal trade in drugs and human rights violations. We note that under his presidency a state presence has been restored to most areas of the country whereas, previously, large tracts were under the control of illegal armed groups.
	However, we have made it plain that in tackling the country's severe problems, human rights and international humanitarian law must be respected. I can tell my noble friend Lord Lea that it was in that light that I raised questions with the ambassador, not only about trade union rights, which are very important, but about the rights of all other organisations in civil society.
	Venezuela, too, continues to be in the news. It has the potential to be a very prosperous country. However, there are huge inequalities in Venezuelan society, as is found in many other Latin American countries. President Chávez is addressing this issue with social projects to help cover some of the problems.
	There is also the issue of political polarisation in Venezuela and instability, which culminated in the presidential recall referendum in August 2004. It is in the interests of the entire region that the Venezuelan Government pursue policies that promote stability, and it is vital that all parties in Venezuela work together in the spirit of reconciliation. The Venezuelan Government must accept their lead role in promoting and defending democracy and human rights. I shall write in more detail about any nuclear aspirations, which are often overstated by people who have them. When considering a country with such a complex provision of and uses for energy sources, it is right to deal with that in more detail.
	There has been a good deal of attention on Cuba in the past few days. I am glad to say that there is some sign of movement. The Cuban Government have allowed a meeting of 150 members of a peaceful organisation in Havana to go ahead—an event unprecedented since the revolution in 1959. However, several MEPs and journalists who attempted to attend the event were expelled from Cuba. That is unacceptable.
	In January the EU agreed temporarily to suspend measures that it had introduced in response to a crackdown on dissidents by the Cuban Government in 2003. That policy is due for review in June.
	We shall seek an outcome in the review which allows us to maintain a firm stance on human rights, and our embassy's active programme of contact with the peaceful opposition will continue. We also want to be in a position to have meaningful dialogue with the Cuban Government, not least because we want to raise human rights concerns. However, we also want to co-operate on matters of mutual interest such as child protection, drugs trafficking and money laundering.
	Noble Lords raised questions about other countries. I shall deal briefly with the question of deforestation in the Amazon forest, which was raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Miller and Lady Rawlings. We keep in close touch with the Brazilians on the issues that are relevant to deforestation. The challenges and pressures are indeed very great. The Amazon is a huge area to police and economic activity—both legal and illegal— which impacts on conservation, is extensive. None the less, we are in active discussion on those questions.
	On Peru, I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, that I have not seen the programme on the Shining Path militarists to which she referred. We certainly do not want to see their return. They caused incalculable misery to the Peruvian people. We accept that we must be on our guard and work in close contact with the democratic institutions to avoid further conflict.
	I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, that we have supported a wide range of projects on human rights and civil society dialogue in Peru, including a national police reform project to support the new office of the police ombudsman and a national media project to strengthen national standards of professionalism and to tackle corruption. We hold regular discussions with Peruvian authorities on human rights issues and on the formation of an effective press council.
	I turn very briefly to one or two comments made about Brazil by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. I was very grateful for his description of his nuptial arrangements. I can only say that I am thankful that mine were a good deal more sedate. From what he said, it was little short of a miracle that he got married. Even if it is very belated and I cannot congratulate his late wife, I congratulate him.
	The noble Lord, Lord Luke, raised some important questions about Argentina. There is no substance in the story in the Sunday Express. I say that unequivocally. Although it is common knowledge that the current Argentine Government have reduced the level of co-operation on the Falkland Islands, there is no reason to believe that there is an increase in the threat to the islands' security. There are no plans to increase the size of British forces in the Falkland Islands and the deployment of HMS "Portland" to the South Atlantic is routine. A constructive and positive relationship in the South Atlantic is in everyone's interest, not least because of the economic questions that the noble Lord, Lord Luke, himself raised. Economic stability is vital.
	I recall last week reading chapter 4 of the International Monetary Fund discussions about the Argentine economy. We monitor that closely, encourage the Government there to pursue policies that will promote economic stability, and are committed to working with United Kingdom companies that have been affected by the current changes.
	I have dealt with political instability; I have said a bit about crime, drugs and human rights concerns. I have also mentioned inequality, but it is very important to remind ourselves, as have several noble Lords, that the region still has a high level of severe poverty, with 132 million people living on less than $2 a day. As the noble Lord, Lord Luke, and others, reminded us, it is not only Africa that is in dire need because of poverty, although Africa as a whole is a continent that is going backwards, which is not the position overall in Latin America.
	However, we think that Latin America is on course to meet most of the 2015 millennium development goals. On current trends, it will not meet all of the targets for reducing the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day and the rate of maternal mortality, because inequality remains severe, fuelled by widespread socio-political and economic exclusion. However, overall, there is progress and we will work on it.
	I fear, as I describe it, that I am falling into the trap of dealing only with bad news. As a consequence, I will probably get job offers as a journalist. I do not want that. As I said, Latin America is a dynamic region. It is rich in natural resources and in its people. It is hardly any surprise, then, that China takes such an interest in what can be done in trade and other terms. It has recognised its significant economic potential and several Latin American countries, especially Brazil and Mexico, are now playing a vital role on the world stage.
	For those reasons, our priorities will be those that I have mentioned. But they will also include child protection—I make this point in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. We have made it clear to governments in central America—bilaterally and with the EU—that we attach great importance to the respect for human rights that must extend to children. We monitor the progress being made by authorities in countries in central America. We are providing support for several local projects to help to protect children, as well as funding equipment and training for local police forces across central America. That is true in Guatemala; it is true in Honduras; that is very important work.
	In that context, I turn very quickly to what I think the Government's agenda will mean for the region. First, I do not accept the notion advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, of benign neglect—I think I cite her properly—nor the proposition advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, that it is an almost nothing area.
	It is true that we have closed some posts in the region and there have been other cuts; it would be fruitless to disguise that. However, it goes without saying that, as the world changes, new priorities appear and new demands on our resources are made. I am sure that everyone will understand that events in the Middle East and Afghanistan, for example, have required a high level of resourcing in both a human and financial sense from our Government. The Foreign Office and other government departments have therefore had to make hard decisions. That is the context, for example, of the decision to have a non-resident ambassador to Paraguay, based in Buenos Aires.
	The focus on priorities does not mean abandoning countries or that we are only a fair-weather friend. We focus our resources because we must. We have 15 embassies in the region, as well as consulates and other offices. That is because we value a constant dialogue with the region and have regular high-level political talks with several governments in the area. I look forward to being involved in them myself. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the meeting in Luxembourg—my noble friend Lady Royall kindly took my place—precisely because I do not want this House to believe that this debate is of any less significance than a debate on Africa or any other matter. The Prime Minister has invited two leaders from the region—President Lula of Brazil and President Fox of Mexico—to the global outreach session at Gleneagles. Others will of course be visiting on the margins. Their contributions on all economic subjects, not least on climate change, will be vital.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, is completely right to emphasise the extent of trade in which Mexico is engaged, the growth—albeit slowing down—in Brazil and the role of the OECD in ensuring that we are very close to those economies. Our presidency of the EU will give us further opportunities to take a lead in some of Europe's business with Latin America. We will work closely with several other countries in multilateral bodies such as the UN and the World Trade Organisation—not having a dialogue just for the sake of it, but because in so many areas we share common objectives and a desire to make progress. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, was absolutely right to emphasise the importance of the United States in such partnerships; I wholly agree with him.
	Nor is our commitment focused only on common political interests on the global stage: we are committed to helping the region in its fight against drugs and crime; to work to promote stability and strengthen democracy, good governance and social cohesion; and to work to help to tackle poverty and exclusion. We are doing that in Colombia, with the regional drugs and crime initiative; we are doing that through the global conflict prevention pool, in which there is a great deal of effort. That is, thankfully, work that also helps some parts of Latin America stay free from conflict, which, as well as resolving conflict, must also be an objective.
	However, there are still important conflict prevention and resolution questions. There are also important questions about indigenous peoples, to which we are attending. That is why the Government are providing £3.75 million in support of international efforts to resolve and avoid conflict for all peoples in Latin America and in security sector reform initiatives during 2004–07.
	It would probably be to trespass on your Lordships' patience to go through the entire DfID programme, but our work in Latin America amounts to about £100 million of aid expenditure each year. The annual bilateral programme of £11 million complements that support, especially by helping the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank. Those areas of aid were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, who also raised the question of water aid, which is a part of that aid programme.
	That is an important—vital—area of work. If we consider all the initiatives being taken—initiatives of substance rather than wordy commitments—there is strong evidence that we are doing our part and will continue to do so.
	The debate has been very valuable. It has drawn attention to a region that, I recognise, can suffer if it gets less attention than it merits. That is why I am grateful to the noble Baroness for having secured the debate. We have a full agenda on which to work with Latin America. I certainly look forward to helping to make that agenda work and to all the assistance that I know I will receive in your Lordships' House in that objective.

Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I thank everybody who has participated in the debate. It has been most useful and has covered a diverse number of subjects. In spite of everything, I feel optimistic about the future, not only of Latin America, but of our relations with Latin America. That is due in no small part to the Minister's positive and thorough response. I thank him for that and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Lord Rooker: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 24 January be approved.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, all the orders are fairly small, but I will not say that they are not of substance, because they are. This order would introduce provisions broadly in line with those dealing with insolvency already in force in Great Britain by the enactment of the Enterprise Act 2002. I shall comment briefly on the order.
	The main purpose of the order is to modernise personal and corporate insolvency law in Northern Ireland thereby providing a stimulus to enterprise and encouraging entrepreneurship. The main changes brought about by the order are to give bankrupts their discharge after one year instead of three years; to remove the right of creditors with security in the form of a floating charge over a company property; to appoint an administrative receiver except in certain specialised cases and to introduce instead a new improved company administration procedure.
	The order is alleged to be non-controversial but I am about to find out about that. A small number of replies were received following the consultation in Northern Ireland; the majority were favourable. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 24 January be approved.—(Lord Rooker.)

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, this is the first opportunity that I have had to congratulate the Minister on his appointment both as Deputy Leader of your Lordships' House and a full-time Minister of State for Northern Ireland. I welcome him into the latter role in particular. He will have a full and difficult period, I am sure. He can look forward to support from this side of the House as long as he goes down the roads that we think are approximately right. When Her Majesty's Government cease to do that, I shall point it out strongly to him, as I am sure he will understand. Having said all that, I look forward to working with the Minister very much. I welcome the order.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I, too, welcome the Minister to his post, but I shall reserve a little more to say about him when we debate Northern Ireland on 9 June. We look forward very much to a good working relationship and I am sure that we will move forward in that spirit.
	We also welcome the order and the consultation process that resulted in the change to Article 17(6) so that it defines a pre-commencement bankrupt in terms of bankruptcy rather than the presentation of a bankruptcy petition, having occurred before the coming into operation of paragraph (1) of that article. There is also a change to paragraph 8 of Schedule 5, which has been amended to refer to interim bankruptcy restrictions orders.
	Although it is helpful to bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK, we must continue to take into account the different experiences in different parts of the United Kingdom and make changes where appropriate.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, as we are only two or three gathered together, all with some familiarity with this subject, it would be churlish of me not to join in welcoming the Minister.
	I recall that in one of the crime Bills for which the Minister was responsible in a previous capacity, I made suggestions arising out of a Select Committee report in the other place about the manner in which the proceeds of those engaged in the drug trade might be clawed back. He responded in Committee that he was not wholly familiar with Northern Ireland—he has been frank throughout—but he very graciously ensured that my suggestions were incorporated into the Bill on Report. So he starts, in personal terms also, with an enormous fund of goodwill in this place.
	As I have been engaged in both debates today, I have not picked up a copy of the order and therefore have not looked at an explanatory document. Is it the case that the order would have come through even if Stormont had not been suspended, or is it an action that the Government are introducing in their capacity as being responsible for the Province while suspension is in place?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their kind words of welcome. I am very grateful and have been touched by supportive comments all around the House and on my four quick visits so far—they will always be quick—to Northern Ireland. I will do my best. I have made clear that it is not an area that I know in detail. If I get things wrong, people will point it out to me. I do not carry much baggage with me but I will bring to bear what experience and goodwill I can in the issues that I have to deal with. I very much look forward to the debate of substance on 9 June. Obviously, that would be the better time.
	I am very grateful for the acceptance of the order. The answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, is "Yes".

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Company Directors Disqualification (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Lord Rooker: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 20 January be approved.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the order introduces a specific measure that is broadly in line with one already in force in Great Britain by the enactment of the Enterprise Act 2002. I will comment briefly and say a few words about the order.
	The main purpose of the order is to protect consumers by providing a deterrent to company directors engaging in price fixing or other abuses of competition law. The order makes it possible for a director of a company that is in breach of competition law to be disqualified for up to 15 years. The order is considered to be non-controversial. Consultation was carried out in Northern Ireland. A small number of replies were received, the majority of which were favourable. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20 January be approved.—(Lord Rooker.)

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I welcome the order. I am delighted that it has come in. Price fixing and unfair trading has been around for far too long in Northern Ireland. Strengthening the penalties has to be right.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, we too support the order. Following consultation in Northern Ireland, no changes were proposed to the draft order. The change seems sensible. However, I just ask the Minister what other body or organisation could be specified as a regulator under the order, other than the OFT.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I will endeavour to obtain an answer for the noble Baroness. Departments change titles and organisations change their functions, and it may be that if, for example, the OFT was replaced by another department or renamed, we would have the legislative framework to deal with that, which I think is normal in other legislation.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Lord Rooker: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 7 February be approved.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the order deals with a number of different matters that have been grouped as miscellaneous items. The items are discrete and stand alone: I shall speak briefly on each of them.
	The first items, in Part II of the order, are changes in the law relating to deeds and other instruments. Apparently, it is current practice for certain transactions to be executed by way of a deed. Existing law dictates that a deed must be signed, sealed and delivered, which is an expression that is well known in many forms. However, the practice of sealing a deed is somewhat anachronistic in 2005. Some of the rules relating to deeds have come under scrutiny in recent times by the Law Reform Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland.
	The order contains provisions that remove the requirement for the sealing of deeds by individuals. It also contains related provisions that will improve the law in that area and will bring a more modernised approach to such transactions. It is a small but important piece of law reform.
	Similarly, that part of the order also abolishes two common law rules that the advisory committee considered were anomalous and required repeal; namely, the rule in Pigot's case—for further particulars I draw attention to Article 8 of the order and paragraph 5 of the Explanatory Memorandum—and the rule in Bain v Fothergill—again, for further particulars, I draw attention to Article 9 of the order and paragraph 6 of the Explanatory Memorandum.
	Part III contains important amendments to existing domestic violence law in Northern Ireland. It contains reforms that will strengthen civil protections for victims of domestic violence and is in line with the Government's commitment to enhance the law in that area and to tackle the problem of domestic violence in a structured and coherent way. Those civil protections will operate in tandem with other initiatives that the Government are taking to address the issue, which centre on the strategy in Northern Ireland called Tackling Violence at Home.
	Part IV contains provisions necessary for Northern Ireland to comply with Protocol 7 to Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The convention requires the law to treat a husband and wife equally. The current common law rules that are addressed in the order do not match that requirement.
	The final part of the order contains various repeals and amendments of existing legislation. I draw particular attention to the repeal of trading stamps legislation. As I said, this is a miscellaneous rag-bag, which moves from deeds to domestic violence and trading stamps. None of those would have been justified on their own, but they are all necessary changes. That is why an opportunity has been found to do them. The change in trading stamps legislation is a parallel repeal that is being considered in relation to the rest of the United Kingdom by the House. It will be a useful deregulatory measure for business.
	In summary, the order is quite technical, but I think that it will be welcomed by those who are affected by it. Clearly, it touches the footprints of people's lives in many ways. I am happy to commend it to the House, and I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 7 January be approved.—(Lord Rooker.)

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, this is another statutory instrument which we are happy to support. On reading in the Explanatory Notes about the consultation process, it is clear that considerable consultation has taken place. Part of it went before the Northern Ireland Assembly prior to its suspension, and both the Law Society and the Office of Law Reform were involved. I have received no communication from the Law Society, which I am sure would have been in touch had there been any problems. I also passed it across to my noble friend Lord Kingsland, the shadow Lord Chancellor. I am happy to support the order.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, we too support the order in that it is a general tidying-up exercise, particularly given the helpful Explanatory Notes. It brings the law in Northern Ireland into line with that which has existed in England and Wales since 1989. It has certainly taken its time to do so.
	I was particularly interested in paragraph 8 of the Explanatory Notes. It talks of how in Northern Ireland savings from a housekeeping allowance paid by a husband to a wife, and any proceeds thereof, belong to the husband. The rule does not apply where an allowance is paid by a wife to her husband and is thus discriminatory and outdated. I could not agree more.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I think that I am the only member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee present in the Chamber. When the noble Lord started on his "signed, sealed and delivered", I thought it sounded familiar, and once he moved on to trading stamps, it became totally so. Both matters were brought before the committee in a deregulation capacity. It is extremely encouraging to a member of the committee to find that we get double productivity in that something that we have considered already is passed on automatically to Northern Ireland and is then carried through.
	While I am on my feet, I say to the Minister as a warning shot that while he very kindly answered my question on the first order by responding with the word, "Yes", I remind him of an occasion when a memorandum was put before Arthur Balfour by his civil servants. It stated: "Prime Minister, there are two things we could do. A and B". Arthur Balfour simply wrote the words, "Yes. AJB", and put the note in his Red Box. The civil servant said, "Prime Minister, we were actually seeking a choice". Balfour replied, "You were not seeking a choice. You were telling me that there are things we can do, and I agree with you".
	I asked the Minister, "is it A or B?", and he replied by simply using the phrase of Arthur Balfour: "Yes". On another occasion I shall come back and ask him to explain it more clearly.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the answer was "Yes" to the noble Lord's first question.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, the first question was followed by the question, "Or B". So the answer "Yes" left me in some state of ambiguity.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Lord was correct in what he assumed to be the case. I shall have to check Hansard for the question, but I think it was, "Would this have happened?". The answer to that was "Yes". I thought that that was a fair answer. I am now being accused of giving answers that are too short, but I accept the spirit in which the point has been made.
	I am grateful for the support for the order and I commend it to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Drainage (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Lord Rooker: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 26 January be approved.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I beg to move the final order standing in my name on the Order Paper. The notes accompanying it are a little more lengthy, but they are worth putting on the record. The order amends the Drainage (Northern Ireland) Order 1973 to give the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development the power to make orders to dissolve drainage trusts and make regulations to charge for the functions it undertakes.
	The agency administers over 20 drainage trust funds. The funds held in the trusts are relatively small in comparison with current drainage maintenance costs. I think that the grand total held in the trusts is £74,000, varying between the most valuable at £26,000 and one worth only a few pounds. Consequently, they have become obsolete and no longer serve the purpose for which they were established.
	In some cases, drains covered by the trusts have been designated by the Drainage Council for Northern Ireland and are now maintained by the Rivers Agency at public expense. Specific power needs to be taken to enable these trusts to be dissolved and to provide for the disposal of the funds remaining in them. The proposed order provides permissive powers to dissolve the drainage trusts.
	It is intended that the individual trust funds will be dissolved as considered appropriate by means of subordinate legislation, of course following consultation. The consultation will enable stakeholders to make representations about any detriment to their interests in the proposed dissolution and to make claims in relation to the disposal of the funds remaining in the trusts.
	Consideration has been ongoing for a number of years into finding a mechanism through which developers could contribute to off-site drainage or other infrastructure improvement costs associated with development. The costs for providing drainage infrastructure improvement schemes to facilitate development are currently borne entirely by the Rivers Agency, with developers benefiting from the schemes without contributing to the costs. I was a little surprised to learn that, as indeed I have been surprised by a few other things about funding and other arrangements in Northern Ireland over the past couple of weeks.
	The Northern Ireland Audit Office report specifically dealt with the issue of developers benefiting from infrastructure works undertaken by the Rivers Agency at public expense. This amendment to the drainage order will enable the department to address this matter by introducing charging by means of subordinate legislation. It will also enable the department to make regulations to charge for other functions under the Drainage (Northern Ireland) Order 1973.
	It is envisaged that the subordinate legislation, which will be subject to public consultation, will provide the detail of charging levels, sanctions, recovery procedure and administrative financial procedures required for the associated collection and accounting of any moneys arising from the charges. Having spelt that out, I shall make sure that we collect more than the cost of collection and red tape. The idea is to gain some money for the public after taking into consideration the sanctions, the procedures and the administrative costs. We have got to end up winning on behalf of the taxpayer.
	The subordinate legislation on obtaining contributions from developers will be formulated in the light of an ongoing study of methodologies for such charging. We expect that the regulations setting out the arrangements for charging for infrastructure work will be brought forward in 2007. It will not happen tomorrow.
	I have referred to some of the benefits that will be brought about by the order. The proposals have found widespread support and acceptance during public consultation. The Construction Employers Federation objected to charging, but it was the only objector so far as I am aware. I see no reason why developers in Northern Ireland should not contribute towards the cost of dealing with increased discharges from developments when the onus is on developers elsewhere in the country to make such provision. That is the normal process and there is no reason why the taxpayer should fully fund such developments. The consent of the majority of stakeholders is such that no amendments have been necessary to the draft order published for public consultation.
	These enabling powers will have no direct financial impact but they do make provision for the department to dispose of any property, including funds, forming part of a trust through subordinate legislation. As I said, the total value of the trusts is currently in the order of £74,000.
	The general power to charge will allow the department to charge for any function under the Drainage (Northern Ireland) Order 1973. We are only considering charges for drainage infrastructure work at this point. There will be full consultation on any further matters.
	The department and the public in Northern Ireland will benefit from the proposed amendment to the drainage order. I am confident therefore that your Lordships will support it. I commend the order to the House.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 26 January be approved.—(Lord Rooker.)

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that detailed explanation of what is an almost historical situation. Most of the drains to which he referred were installed in 1925 for draining the countryside and so on.
	I am not certain whether or not I should declare an interest. I am involved partly in the countryside and partly in construction. I am still a director of the National House-Building Council, which is involved with developers and so on. To my knowledge, I do not have an interest to declare.
	I hope that the Minister is right and that he will be able to pay for this scheme, but I am not sure that I support him in his desire to win all the way for the taxpayer in this situation. I do not necessarily agree with that. I wonder whether this will impact in any way on the debate about the increase in water rates, which is due to take place in your Lordships' House later, and influence what the charges for water rates will be. I sincerely hope the noble Lord can assure me that it will not. Otherwise, I support the order.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, we on these Benches also welcome the order. Perhaps I may ask the Minister a couple of questions. Can he give an indication of the kinds of functions for which the department has it in mind to charge? He mentioned infrastructure works; can he give me a little more detail about that? To whom would such charges be made? Otherwise, we support the order.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the Rivers Agency—the public—is paying for the drainage work being done as a consequence of, or preparatory to, development. We all know that in most cases development—I have to be careful about this—increases the value of land and property. It is a bit like planning permission. One normally requires the developers to fund part, if not all, of the infrastructure costs associated with development. We are considering charges only for drainage infrastructure works at present. Charges for other functions, which I mentioned as an aside, may be considered later. I say to the noble Baroness that there are no plans on my desk with a list.
	On the noble Lord's slightly teasing question, there is no connection with the water reform proposals. However, I fully accept that they will certainly be debated at some time in this House.
	The charges will be levied on those who undertake the development. I fully accept that later they may say that the costs have to be passed on. It is a bit like VAT or Section 106. This is quite normal in the rest of the country—we are not inventing the wheel here. The developers are expected to pay for some of the infrastructure costs arising from their development. I hope that answers the question, but other noble Lords may wish to participate in the debate.

Lord Molyneaux of Killead: My Lords, I am a little concerned about Article 4 of the order on the power of the department to charge for the exercise of functions. Living, as I do, in a rural area, I urge caution in any acceptance or extension of such powers. Perhaps the Minister will heed his own instincts and go for caution in any extension of such powers. We already have some examples of threats to farmers who are somewhat nervous about various extensions which were never in the mind of anyone legislating on the matter. Some of them I understand, and some of what we are debating today may have originated in Europe. Perhaps on Sunday next our French colleagues may do something to protect us from such excesses.

Lord Naseby: My Lords, the Minister's antecedents are in local government, as are mine. While we understand the situation in England extremely clearly, I am not sure that the Section 106 agreements that we are familiar with necessarily apply in Northern Ireland. I say that as a former PPS in Northern Ireland.
	My question is in relation to the objection from the developers. As someone who was formerly a non-executive director of a major contractor in England, I wonder where the boundary of charge is. I do not know where it is in Northern Ireland but there is an awful lot of difference between a drainage charge in relation to the perimeter of the site that is being developed and a drainage charge for the main sewer.
	It is a very bold Minister who suggests that it is all carte blanche and straightforward and easy, based on the English precedent. I suspect that it is not quite as simple as the noble Lord suggests.

Lord Lyell: My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to the happy area of agriculture in Northern Ireland. He may have heard, even now, that I was purported to be in charge of agriculture for five and a half years. During the course of my career there, the Drainage Division in the old Department of Agriculture, became the Watercourse Management Division, which trebled the length of any contribution to your Lordships' House and gave great pleasure. But I am pleased to see that watercourse management is mentioned in new paragraph 29A(2)(a), with regard to maintenance of watercourses or other works. I had always assumed, until the Minister gave his excellent explanation, which has engendered further debate, that much of what we are discussing today was very much as laid out by my noble friend Lord Glentoran, on the subject of trusts and dealing with drainage in connection with agricultural works in the rural areas. But I understand that the situation is much more complicated now, once we have developers.
	As the Minister put it so succinctly, people are getting free drainage—which in Northern Ireland amounts to a pretty substantial sum, and is pretty crucial. I was grateful to him for spelling out the amount of money involved, because as soon as he mentioned the word "methodology", I knew precisely whence the briefing was coming. Indeed, that term used to cross my desk often and provided a very valuable smokescreen in your Lordships' House, though not this afternoon. The Minister has been so clear—but he might confirm for me that the sum is in the region of £74,000, and that he will take the greatest care to see that the farmers and those in rural communities originally affected by the 1925 Act and the 1973 order are not gravely disadvantaged. I suspect that if they are a path will be beaten to his door.
	I welcome the Minister's appointment to the Northern Ireland post, and I am sure that he will enjoy it. I am very grateful for the clear way in which he set out the order for us this afternoon.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, as the person who at the moment purports to be in charge of agriculture in Northern Ireland, as the noble Lord said, I shall do my best to answer that. I shall knock two things on the head for a start. I was not, in referring to Section 106, making a direct analogy; I was referring only to the fact that at the moment the taxpayer, through the Rivers Agency, funds it all. The sum of money of course runs into millions of pounds, but the Rivers Agency spends in doing this, and that of course comes out of taxpayers' contributions. So there is no question on that score.
	In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, there are issues relating to farmers, which started off in Brussels and which are not really related to what we are discussing. One of those is the nitrates directive. I assure the noble Lord that when I visited the Balmoral show, every other person raised the question of the nitrates directive with me. That is a matter that will be actively considered—but it is not part and parcel of what we are discussing. I am not aware that what we are debating started off in Europe.
	I should also knock on the head the notion that I have antecedence in local government. I have never been a local authority councillor.
	The other point is that all the powers that will flow from this order—that is, the power to charge, how it is done, the area that is covered, how that area is delineated and where the boundaries are—will all be subject to consultation. Nothing will flow from this order automatically. There is a power to dissolve the trusts; as I say, there is only £74,000 and a few more pounds in those trusts, and each one will be done separately, so we shall see if anybody is owed money from the trusts. But there will be plenty of opportunity for people who would be adversely affected by the dissolution of a trust or the methodology of the way in which the charges are formed to have their fivepenny-worth. There will be a full and proper consultation. Nothing will automatically flow by way of a charging system; the coverage and amount of the charges flowing from the order will all come in other subordinate legislation.

On Question, Motion agreed to.
	House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes before five o'clock.